Hi folks
The main thing that I always try to impress on my students is accuracy. It's the thing that distinguishes a clean, precise player from a sloppy one. With a little attention to detail, some guidance in the right direction and a little self-discipline there is no reason why anyone can't hone their skills and become a competent player.
You operate our instruments with your hands. The sliding hand controls the pitch while the picking hand controls where the note is placed in time. If your movements are considered and practiced then you, and everyone else, will hear the results in your music. It's worth getting both of these things right from the very beginning. Very simple music can be a joy to listen to when it is performed well.
Pitch
When playing slide guitar it is possible to play an infinite number of notes of different pitch on any string but that doesn't mean that you should. In fact the main thing that you need to learn early on is how to avoid doing this. There are twelve different notes in the western musical system, stick with those. The other infinity minus 12 (I know that makes no sense, just humour me) we'll avoid.
Two things will affect the accuracy of your pitch, the first is where you place the slide along the length of the string. It needs to be in the exactly the right place, hopefully your fret markers are accurate. The second thing is how much pressure you apply to the string relative to it's tension. I'll explain. If your strings are wound real tight then you can press down harder with the slide before the string stretches enough to raise the pitch. Be careful though, tuning your guitar too high will put extra stress on the neck. If the tension is not so high, it won't take much pressure at all to push the string down and raise the pitch. Even guitars set with a high action will obey this rule, just because your action is high doesn't mean that you can bang down on the strings with impunity.
The first thing that you need to practice as a beginner is how to play a note. On a keyboard that's easy, you just press the button. On a fretted instrument it's only a little more complicated. With a slide though this will remain your primary technical challenge. Your free introductory lesson at LearnCigarBoxGuitar.com covers that.
It is a challenge for beginners but Youtube is scattered with seasoned CBG players that could benefit from a little more attention to accuracy.
Shane Speal is not one of those. There's a video of his, that I can't find now, in which he explains how he discovered that his beloved socket wrench slide came custom built with an arrow like pointer that enabled him to line up his slide precisely with the fret he was after. He may not be explaining it in the same terms that I am, but we're talking about the same thing: accuracy.
So take the time to listen to what you are doing and be strict with yourself, don't make excuses for having a slide on your finger. As always you'll build these skills quicker if you approach them in a systematic fashion and the Starter Pack course at LearnCigarBoxGuitar.com will certainly do that. This is not to say that you shouldn't have fun, on the contrary. Put in ten minutes or so of hard work every day and the rest of the time just pay a little more attention to detail and the benefits will be well worth the effort.
A similar approach is required for your picking hand. More on that later.....
Happy pickin'
Patrick Curley