How To Play Slides

HI GMC!

Welcome to my new lesson.

This lesson is all about the sliding technique. This lesson rounds up what I like to call "smooth playing basics" which is in my opinion the control over the following 3 techniques: hammer-ons, pull-offs and slides. These 3 techniques allow you to play very smooth lines as you can substitute some of the notes you would normally play with a pick and use one of those techniques instead. All 3 techniques in their technical nature provide you with legato sounding lines (as opposed to sounding staccato or choppy) as there are no pauses between two notes you play using any of those techniques. These unwanted pauses between notes is something which can often haunt us when starting to play the instrument. What happens is that our hands are not in perfect sync and up to speed to excuse smooth sounding lines where all the notes are picked with the picking hand so there are unwanted pauses in between two notes we play (this is the timeframe in which we move our fretting hand fingers to the next note). Easy fix for this is to learn hammer-ons, pull-offs and slides and try to use them in what you play and practice.

Sliding technique has another big benefit: we use this technique when connecting different scale boxes on the neck when soloing. This means that this technique alone is a key to unlocking horizontal playing on the guitar fretboard. Usually, we practice scales and patterns in a vertical manner focusing only one one position on the fretboard at the time. This is fine for practice, but also something which comes as a stumbling stone for players pushing towards higher levels and starting to practice improvisation and soloing. What happens is that those solos start to sound like exercises as we naturally gravitate towards playing them in only one position or just playing them vertically. This is where sliding technique comes into place: you start the lick in one position and then you slide from one of the notes up or down to the next position on the fretboard. You are essentially moving diagonally (horizontally) now and breaking boundaries of being stuck in single scale position/box.

Hope this will inspire you to practice your sliding technique and try to incorporate it in melodies you play on the guitar.
This technique can be a lot of fun once you get it going!

See you in my next lesson!