Tonefiend Forum

I pretty much play slide 98% of the time for the last 14 years or so, before that I played slide about half the time. Nowadays I feel frets are sort of limiting and use frets only for specific sounds in tunes like staccato notes or palm muted stuff (but I can do most stuff with a slide that others do with frets.) But mostly I just love the swooping sounds you get with slide. I also play fretless guitar and bass as well as electric cello. Over the years my ear has gotten so critical I use tuners with .1 cent accuracy like petersons or Planet Waves, I have also found that intonation is critical for the chordal stuff I play so all those old lap steels without intonation adjustments are useless to me foranything other than single or double notes. I've never played a pedal steel much and with my bad back I won't even try it today. As for tunings i use many and even some open tunings that aren't even chords but thy allow for some great arpeggiated picking. I also have a Strat with a Hipshot Trilogy that I flip the levers on while playing, it allows me access to a lot more chord shapes and also works well to randomize things for free improv playing. I recently have been listening to Hawaiian influenced music from the late 30's and 40's that has some mindbending lap steel in it (I hear them on an OTR stream for 20th Century Radio) it is very humbling to say the least. The main drawback to slide is when that today it seems like producers see it as a trend and there are some truly awful slide guitar parts on recordings. There is nothing more painful to my ears than poor intonation in slide playing (tho' I did my share of it 30 years ago). I don't play blues or country style music on slide, most of what I play is psychedelic,garage, and proto-prog tho' I have been lately influenced by the neo-folk music a lot (I listened to a lot of Jefferson Airplane growing up so it's a natural fit). I do not however wish frets didn't exist as slide sounds great against fretted guitar lines.

I have a mandolin and a ukulele. The mandolin makes me think about intervals differently, and the uke makes me think about key/position. It's fun to do something different once in awhile.

Check out what I call the "Freddie Roulette" tuning. It's a ninth tuning with two flatted 7ths. I have that neck of my steel tuned B D E Aflat B D E Fsharp, low to high, or flat7 5th root third fifth seventh octave ninth, if you prefer to think in intervals. Check out Freddie Roulette's stuff on Youtube if you haven't heard his otherworldly playing before. I did a hasty pastiche on a demo on my blog you can see/hear here;https://inspireformation.blogspot.ca/2012/06/dunlop-jimi-hendrix-jh-2-fuzz.html
Thanks to all of you for your insightful comments!

Quote from Double D on August 17, 2012, 01:17 I want a mando or fiddle to start tackling the stacked fifth structure, but its painful enough for my family already. How many clammy notes can they handle?

The banjo is one of thos instruments that produces wonderful music in good hands, or deplorable noises in the wrong. It's in the good company of the bagpipes and accordian.

Quote from Double D on August 17, 2012, 01:17
I've been enjoying the banjo of late. My brother gave me a cheapie he'd acquired somehow or other, and although it's G tuning is almost completely analogous to the bottleneck tuning I've used for years, the banjo leads me to other places. I want a mando or fiddle to start tackling the stacked fifth structure, but its painful enough for my family already. How many clammy notes can they handle?

I did something I've been wanting to do for a long time lately, inspired by the Aquila strings I talked about in this post: I replaced the steel string not just with nylon, but with a type of nylon that sounds a lot like gut. I have a big, heavy, high-end Deering that I inherited (long story), so I also removed the resonator, and installed an old-school head. It's a real pretty sound, and lot less exhausting.