Free Online Slide Guitar Lessons

Sources for Free Online Slide Guitar Lessons

The Internet offers numerous places where you can find free lessons and advice about learning to play slide guitar. Some sites definitely have more to offer than others, but you never know where you'll learn something you didn't know before, regardless of how much material is covered.

Access Rock

Accessrock.com offers a very condensed tutorial on how to play slide guitar, but it's worth your time if you're new to slide. The lesson begins with an overview of how playing slide differs from regular guitar techniques, including not pushing down on the frets. The lesson moves on to basic left and right hand techniques, and offers exercises you can practice to improve your slide technique and achieve better sound. You can also listen to the audio links provided to augment the lesson.

Acoustic Guitar Workshop

AcousticGuitarWorkshop.com concentrates on teaching D tuning, and provides chord charts and tabs so you can begin playing a few songs immediately. This website also offers audio links so you can listen to how things should sound, as well as the opportunity to subscribe to paid lessons.

Free Guitar Videos

FreeGuitarVideos.com offers a free slide lesson video on basic techniques, but also offers premium lessons you'll have to pay for in order to view. In the free lesson, instructor Jody Worrell covers right hand techniques that allow only the strings you want to be heard. The lesson also covers left hand techniques, including which fingers to use your slide with.

You can take a quick peek at the paid lesson to make sure it's what you're looking for before you shell out your $5.00. The premium companion to the free slide lesson features slide techniques used by the Allman Brothers Band. The videos are available in Quicktime or Flash.

Expert Village

ExpertVillage.com offers one of the most comprehensive sets of free online slide guitar lessons. There are 17 videos in the series, but before you begin to count the hours, know that each video is only about a minute or two long. The instructor, John Armstrong, cuts straight to the meat of each lesson, offering common sense instruction and simple visuals that really make it easy to pick up the techniques.

The How to Play Electric Slide Guitar series includes:

• Lesson one: This video offers a basic introduction to slide.
• Lesson two: Armstrong gives advice on the best string gauge to use, as well as the need for higher action and which type of slides work best to achieve the tones you want.
• Lesson three: This video covers finger techniques, including which finger to wear the slide.
• Lesson four: Armstrong clearly explains how to achieve a good tone using a slide.
• Lesson five: This lesson covers different types of slides and which types of guitars they work with best.
• Lesson six: This video covers right hand techniques, including picking and muting.
• Lesson seven: Armstrong teaches sliding techniques.
• Lesson eight: This video covers vibrato techniques, including normal bending as well as achieving vibrato with a slide.
• Lesson nine: G minor scale and chord progressions are discussed.
• Lesson ten: Armstrong demonstrates how to drop the tuning on your guitar's E strings down to D, resulting in a bluesy tuning that works well for slide.
• Lesson eleven: Learn more about open D tuning and accompanying chords in the D triad.
• Lesson twelve: More open tunings are covered for slide.
• Lesson thirteen: Armstrong explains the use of the pentatonic scale in slide guitar.
• Lesson fourteen: Learn about the root notes used in slide guitar, including including the accompanying thirds, fifths and dominant sevenths.
• Lesson fifteen: Armstrong explains how to hit those high notes beyond the fretboard.
• Lesson sixteen: Learn how to use the diagonal double stop technique to play slide notes on different frets simultaneously.
• Lesson seventeen: Armstrong covers the finer points of advanced slide techniques in this final lesson, including dragging to mute out unwanted tones.