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Slide

I'm trying to figure out what works for me. Arthritis really limits my left hand fingers, and not being a player, figuring out how to noodle around is challenging...gonna have to pay closer attention to Shane's lessons.

But slide....have a metal stubby, and a 3/4" socket. Seems the socket is far too heavy to control, and my hand doesn't want to put fingers parallel to the frets and as well the stubby seems a bit short, barely covers 3 strings, and trying to do the Shane 'middle string' thing is hard, very hard, to do with anything resembling control. And barre chords? Forget it. When you cant make your finger straight, well... lots of empty space for a string to find.

I had a thought, has anyone ever used metal finger picks as a fingertip slide? Or are they too light, needing more mass? It seems like an interactive idea to me, but being completely ignorant of guitar, I don't know if it's even viable...

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on February 6, 2020 at 12:45pm

Hi James, I can imagine how you feel mate, I had a great brass slide, but playing slide in the band caused pain after a few hours. I drilled it full of holes, away from the playing surface [see my photo in my recent post slide city and it was a lot better].

I would suggest a glass slide, you can get thin walled ones and they are so light you would not know you had it on, but they do break easily. There are also 1/2 slides available, imagine a large metal fingerpick.

You could set up a 3 stringer as a lap slide and play with a bar.

Taff

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Permalink Reply by James Pobog on February 7, 2020 at 3:37am

I pulled the trigger on a Jetslide last night, we'll see how it goes.

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Permalink Reply by Jack Brady on February 7, 2020 at 12:55am

On a Justin Johnson video he shows that if you wrap your thumb around the neck like you are holding it,that your slide wont be straight.He says to put thumb behind the neck so it is pointing towards the headstock and that makes the slide straight automatically.

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Permalink Reply by James Pobog on February 7, 2020 at 3:39am

Huh...who'da thunk it...

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on February 7, 2020 at 5:22am

Check my video about the basic ergonomics of holding and playing the guitar. It majors on barre chords, but the basic principles of good posture won't do you any harm. If you still have real pain and problems, try lap-style slide, as it puts your hands in a much more relaxed and natural position.