Slide Guitar: A Melodic Development in Soloing

As I’ve developed as a guitar player, certainly via playing experience but primarily through exposure, I’ve established a firm belief that excellence in musicality comes in many forms. Each professional or semi-professional guitarist I’ve had the joy of watching incorporates unique elements into their playing, attempting to relevantly serve their music. Some offer incredible right-hand rhythm or picking techniques (think Cory Wong and his off-the-charts speed). Others abandon a plastic pick and electric guitar altogether, letting their fingers operate with immense coordination by creating symbiotic basslines and melodies all with one hand (think Andy McKee). Yet despite all these intricate, well-practiced, and distinct elements of playing, soloing remains the pinnacle of what people perceive as guitar excellence. Perhaps the spotlighted nature of soloing and accessibility to the average listener are what accentuates the craft. Perhaps the history of cutting guitar solos in popular music cemented its status. No matter the reason, a good solo receives the majority of attention when considering what constitutes a great guitarist. 

I’ve never particularly considered myself a naturally strong soloist. Many of the fellow guitarists I’ve worked with could play faster, had a stronger understanding of scale theory, or worked chordal structure into their dynamic builds better than myself. Still, I worked slowly on my understanding of modes and scales while improving finger dexterity. That said, my biggest improvements came from listening. Technical musical knowledge has finite value if you cannot apply it to a specific context and do so with nuance. The first time I really started understanding this concept and identifying sonic examples came through Duane Allman and his slide guitar solos.

Slide is objectively limiting to guitar technicality. Stick your finger into the top of a glass wine bottle. You’re clunkier. You lose precision. Wrong notes sound really wrong. No matter the size of the slide or the specific finger you put it on, you cannot even play traditional chords easily. None of those reductive qualities matter when you listen to the Allman Brothers. Throw on a live version of “Dreams” and you’ll realize that Duane Allman’s work reveals how reduction is addition. A close friend of mine who also happens to be a great guitarist once told me that dynamics are the epitome of good music. Slide perfectly captures that philosophy. By simplifying a guitarist's ability to play a multitude of notes at once, quickly invert chords, or run through pentatonic lines, dynamics and intentional melody become the soul of the solo. 

Slide guitar is a remarkably different instrument because it relies on vocalized expression. The micro-tonalities and range between frets only add to a guitarist's expressive ability. Suddenly, when they play with metal or glass on their finger, the instrument eerily reflects the human voice, thus transforming the guitar into a hyper-focused, linearly moving instrument. Soloing on slide becomes all about range, build, and finding melodic replication that brings out the most emotive elements in music. 

The timeline and development of emotive slide playing is beautifully traceable. Elmore James to Duane Allman to Derek Trucks is an open road of slide guitar history to drive down. Do yourself a favor and listen to each of those artists’ version of  “Done Somebody Wrong.” James’ hits listeners with a remarkable grit and anguish. Allman adds a flavor of pitch manipulation with his high register that is simply unparalleled. Trucks brings out a dynamic range within the song that makes you question everything you know about what a guitar can sound like. That’s the beauty of slide guitar. The nuanced development forces those who play slide to think about every little movement on the guitar’s neck so directly. Linear rather than horizontal movement inherently requires a stronger understanding of all the melodic pockets a solo can sit in while dynamically and octavely changing. 

Trucks truly is the master of finding those aforementioned melodic pockets. His work studying Indian raga and the different scale modes within that genre enables him to sit in a low register and create idiosyncratic tonics in every little melodic line he creates. Listen to his rendition of Derek and the Dominos “Keep on Growing” from the Tedeschi Trucks album, Live from the Fox, Oakland. Every single slide between notes on the low E and A strings are calculated manipulations of pitch and space that embrace both tone and volume. Here, his slide technique requires decreased or increased pressure on the strings based on the type of the sound he wants while building. In turn, this offers an entirely untouched realm of sounds that typical guitar playing does not include. 

Focus, practice, intentionality, and observation are keys to becoming any sort of good musician. Across my musical journey, nothing has forced me to embrace those four qualities more than slide guitar. I would argue that any guitarist will become a far better soloist if they attempt to learn slide. Even if you don’t regularly center slide in your sound but have diligently worked to understand its nuanced techniques, you will be far better at curating melody. Take Duane Allman’s “Little Martha.” The antithesis of slide, this acoustic fingerstyle song has impeccable depth and melodic movement throughout. It seems like a simple I-IV-V structure because it is. However, the unbelievable attention to intermixed tones and shifts make this song as beautiful as it is. I believe this partially comes from Allman’s experience with slide guitar. 

 Returning to the idea that good dynamics epitomize great music, I believe this to be true due to emotion. Dynamics reflect the range human beings can feel emotion while listening to music. Slide’s vocalized quality is a truly emotive element of music. To me, it is the most emotive sound a guitarist can ever produce. 

Every great guitar player I’ve ever encountered pairs analytical curiosity with unquestioned passion, and a self-aware honesty in order to sharpen their abilities. Those qualities create some of the best music I’ve ever listened to. And music is best internalized, played, and heard when emotion is subtly driving the song. I never understood this until I fell in love with playing slide. 

Suggested* Slide Guitar Tracks:

“It Hurts Me To” - Elmore James, 1940

The Twelve Year Old Boy - Elmore James, 1957

You Don’t Love Me - The Allman Brothers Band, 1971

Les Brers in A Minor - The Allman Brothers Band, 1972

Sahib Teri Bandi - Maki Madni - The Derek Trucks Band, 2006

Darling Be Home Soon - Tedeschi Trucks Band, 2012

*There are an infinite amount of slide guitarists that I did not mention in this article. From tabla players to modern Neo-soul artists, slide’s tone exists across musical genres. The artists I used as examples in this blog post (Elmore James, Duane Allman, and Derek Trucks, pictured at the top of the article) are just one piece of slide history, certainly not the only one. Indeed, they are the three I am most familiar with and have influenced me the most.