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Blues Guitar Institute

Slide Guitar Lesson: Open G Lick

Play the Video for a Quick Slide Guitar Lesson

If you haven’t checked out my previous slide guitar lesson, it may be useful to give it a listen first.  While there isn’t any playing in that lesson, its chock full of tips aimed at the new or struggling slide player.  Here’s a quick recap of what’s covered in that lesson:

  • Get a clear tone by raising your guitar’s action
  • Keep your notes in tune by playing on top of the frets
  • Lightly lay a finger or two behind the slide to dampen unwanted string noise
  • Use open tunings for easier chords

Slide Lick in Open G

In this video, I show you a cool slide lick in G.  I’m using the open G tuning.

Open G Tuning:  D – G – D – G – B – D

This lick is played on the middle three strings which don’t actually change from standard tuning to Open G, so you could just as well play this in standard tuning.  I find that tuning to Open G, just gets me in the slide mood!

Phrasing

The key to this lick is really in the phrasing.  When I first started playing slide guitar, I had a ton of trouble playing notes that sounded as if they were fretted.  What I mean is, once you get that slide moving around on the neck it gets difficult to control.  Some notes need to be played short.  Some sequences need to have space between them.  Some phrases need the sliding from one to another.  Others don’t.

Even though we are playing with a contraption on our finger, we can’t forget about phrasing.  This lick has a couple of tricky spots in that regard, but spend some time with it and you’ll be writting some awesome slide licks of your own in no time.

Best of luck to you!

When you are ready, there are two ways I can help you:

Back Porch Blues Course:  A proven system to fingerpicking the blues.  This step-by-step course guides you through building fundamental fingerpicking skills.  Plus, you’ll learn three levels of a delta blues style performance study to put your new skills into action.

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