Message Board Archive: Thread Number 118

Is the choice of left hand finger for the slide purely a personal
preference, or is there a consensus on which finger is "best"? I see
most current performers with the slide on the little finger or the ring
finger,perhaps with a few more on the ring finger. I have been trying
both and seem to be leaning toward the ring finger now. I would
appreciate any thoughts, preferences or discussion of pros and cons.

Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 16:44:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: zeppa@earthlink.net (Frank Basile)
Subject: Feedback: Re: Slide Technique - Left Hand
Message Number: 118.1

Brad wrote:
>Is the choice of left hand finger for the slide purely a
>personal preference, or is there a consensus on which finger
>is "best"? I see most current performers with the slide on
>the little finger or the ring finger, perhaps with a few more
>on the ring finger. I have been trying both and seem to be
>leaning toward the ring finger now. I would appreciate any
>thoughts, preferences or discussion of pros and cons.
I think that most of the early guys played with slide on the little
finger (unless they played lap style, of course). I remember watching
Taj Mahal play a guitar of mine and he put the slide on his little
finger.
I'm not sure why the little finger was the obvious choice... maybe it
was uncommon to use the pinky for fretting in _any_ case and popping a
slider on there didn't hamper their ability to fret the guitar. Take a
look at the picture of Charley Jordan on the cover of Yazoo's St. Louis
Town. He's playing this chord:
E-5--
B-2--
G-2--
D-2--
A-0--
E-x--
without using his pinky (and smiling... now _that's_ a *man*). In my
case, though, I got used to using my pinky for stuff long before I
decided to play slide. Some stretches (like reaching for the 8th fret Bb
from the 5th fret G in open G tuning) I find really uncomfortable if I'm
not able to use my little finger. I've always felt more comfortable with
the slide on my ring finger even though I know it's not the traditional
way to do it. Does it matter much to do it in the "traditional" way? I
dunno... on some level, I think so (and to that effect, every once in a
while I put the thing on my little finger and try to work it out). The
bottom line, though, is your comfort level. If you can't get used to the
slide on your pinky and you convince yourself that you *must* play that
way, you'll probably get pretty discouraged about slide playing in
general... and that'd probably be less fun for you than just putting the
slide on your ring finger and doing what comes naturally.
Frank

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 15:57:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Owner-HyperNews@ComCAT.COM
Subject: I use my pinky ..
Message Number: 118.2

It's true that you can use whatever is more comfortable, but the pinky
is the 'traditional'. One reason NOT to use the other fingers is that
with the pinky, you can use all three fingers to mute the strings for a
cleaner slide sound (i.e.; Joe Walsh and Ron Wood both use their middle
fingers .. early Faces recordings of Wood really sound messy .. which is
kind of good for Faces music, but I'd rather be able to choose how I
want the sound to be, rather than always being messy with false
harmonics I don't want coming off the slide)

I also find that I play better with my first three fingers rather than
that awkward gap of first, middle and ring when you're NOT using the
slide during your playing.

Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1998 11:41:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Bhhamilton@aol.com (Brad Hamilton)
Subject: More: Now I use my pinky
Message Number: 118.2.1

After several months of experimentation, I now use exclusively my pinky
for the slide, for exactly the reasons that Paul described. I could not
get a good damping behind the slide with the slide on my ring finger,
probably b/c I broke my index finger a couple times when I was young and
it is naturally curved away from the guitar neck (makes bar chords a
bitch, probably why I'm not a famous rock and rool quitarist by now).
Also, I studied tons of pictures of slide players, and they almost all
used the pinky. Thanks for the input, Brad.