Slide Ukulele
April 15, 2009
I couldn’t take a look at Robert Johnson without covering slide playing. And using the slide on the ukulele seems to be a trend of late. Just in the last few months I’ve seen videos of it used by James Hill, Tomotaka Matsui (of the Sweet Hollywiians), Peter Madcat Ruth and plenty of other people. And it’s not hard to see why. It’s a lot of fun to do, you can pick up a guitar slide very cheap from almost any music shop (or on eBay) and, once you’ve got the basics under your belt, it’s a very intuitive and natural way to play.
The only problem is there aren’t any materials out there for people to learn it. So I’ve put together a mini-ebook outlining the tricks and techniques for slide playing with videos, photos, tabs and mp3s.
It’s focussed on the lap style of playing (that James Hill and Tomotaka Matsui are using) but, since I’m assuming you don’t have one of the world’s three Beltona lap steel ukuleles, it’s geared towards doing it on a standard ukulele (and re-entrant tuning).
Here are a few of the longer examples from the book:
Blues Flavored Tune
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Blues Riff
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Island Flavored Tune
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The ebook focuses on techniques more than tabs, so it’s not really suitable for people who are new to the ukulele. I had in mind that it would be good for people who had read my blues ukulele ebook (or who were familiar with that sort of thing) and wanted to start playing around with the slide and improvising with it.
How to Play Slide Ukulele
Price: $7
If you haven’t bought one of my ebooks before, check out my FAQ page to find out the process. If you have any other questions you need answering, you can contact me here.
Slide Ukulele Tips
For those of you that don’t want to shell out for the ebook, here are the top tips to get you started:
Find a uke with high action: If you use one with low action, you’ll always be clattering the slide against the frets. If you plan on doing a lot of slide work, it might be worth raising the action on one of your ukes.
Muting: The most important part of slide playing. Make sure you mute the strings behind the slide with your fretting hand or you’ll get all sorts of nasty overtones. You’ll also have to mute the strings that you don’t want to sound with your picking hand.
Use an open tuning: You can only play one fret at once, so it helps to tune it to an open chord. I started out with open C tuning – GCEG – but decided it was a waste having two strings tuned the same (cutting down your note choices even further). In the end, I settled on C7 tuning: GCEBb (i.e. the A string tuned up one fret).
Over the frets: Rather than putting the bar where you would if you were fretting the uke normally, you have to place it right over the frets themselves. And make sure that the bar is parallel with the frets or some of the strings will sound out of tune.
Play very lightly: You don’t want to be pushing down on the slide at all.
Upright or Lap: If you want to play fretted notes as well as slide notes, you’ll have to go upright. But I prefer playing lap style – it allows for some slide techniques that you can use when you’re playing it upright.
How to Play Slide Ukulele
Price: $7
haven’t bought the ebook yet, will do tonight. I’m looking forward to reading it.
I do love a bit of slide uke and have a reso for the purpose. I use low g and then tune my ‘a’ string down to g, so i get two different g notes. It sounds lovely and rich. :)
Al,
Flipped through the book at lunch today – looks great! Can wait to buy a slide….
mictoboy: Thanks. hope you like it. I tried tuning the A to G, but it’s a bit restrictive on re-entrant uke. I went with GCEBb for the blues tunes. Works well I think.
Donnie: Thanks! I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun with it.
Hello Al , Great to see some more titles and blues and / or slide is fantastic on the uke.Keep up the good work.Cheers from Micheal.
I spent the afternoon with this e-book, my fluke (retuned as suggested in the book) and an old glass spice bottle for a slide. Great fun! I got a lotta-mo practice before I reach the abilities of tHeDirTyJoHnsoN or some of the other slide-ukers out there, but this book is a great tool in the darker arts of blues!
Just to echo the above comments. great intro to the subject, clearly laid out and easy to follow. :)
Seems great.
How come you use Paypal and no longer Click bank?
In the past when I have tried to buy things through Paypal, after I fill out the info and click enter or continue with order it always said I had to get an account, which I don’t want.
This is great! I was hoping you would do something like this. I bought your blues book a while ago and it was fantastic! This will give me more incentive to practice with my slide (which has sadly been gathering dust lately.)
Michael: Thanks. Hope you enjoy it.
HoldinCoffee: Glad you’re finding it helpful.
mictoboy: Cheers!
Tamster: You should have an email from me.
Franny: Thanks. I hope you do some more slide videos – I loved your version of The Love I’m Searching For. (Assuming it’s the same Franny).
This is great! I have been fooling around with a slide for a couple years now; thought I was the only goofball doing this! Just bought your E-Book – KOOL!
Nicely done once again woodshed! I have never had much luck with the slide, partially because I think I was lazy with tuning my guitar to an open tuning and back all the time. But with my recent conversion to uke all the time, and only having to tweak that A string – I’m in old school blues heaven AGAIN. (the first was when I picked up your blues uke book)
GOOD STUFF!
Baron: It looks like all the cool kids are trying it!
nowuh: Thanks. And standard tuning works really well for Hawaiian tunes – even better for us lazy ones.
Mahalo for putting this together. I spent the last week learning the tunes and replaced the bic lighter I was using for a brass slide so now the songs sound even better. Fun stuff wouldbe nice to see more songs and techniques in future
Chongolio: Glad you liked it. And glad you didn’t start any fretboard fires!