Message Board Archive: Thread Number 151

Having logged on late, let me add 2 cents worth to the discussion of
bottleneck technique and choice of finger.

I am now a pinky with a Bordeaux bottle kind of guy, for reasons of
flexibility in fretting. The posted discussion of damping behind the
slide is a bit puzzling, in that I should think that even one finger is
sufficient to the purpose. Besides, damping is of real concern in
electric, and particularly, straight tuning and single note playing. In
traditional, acoustic, unaccompanied, open tuning work the "behind the
slide" sound is in order.

If you like precedent, Fred McDowell used glass on the pinky; Son House,
copper on the ring finger, and Bonnie Raitt (if memory serves), glass on
the middle finger. Fred’s technique enables using a regulation straight
tuning C chord fingering in G tuning, yielding a way cool C9 chord.
Listen to "Frisco Lines" (most of his tunes were in open D).

For interested parties, Sing Out! magazine still has (last time I
checked, anyway) copies of Vol. 20/#4, March/April 1971, a "special
teach-in issue" including my article on bottleneck technique with a
transcription of Robt. Johnson’s "Come On In My Kitchen." It was clearly
written in my Son House phase before I decided to Be Like Fred, so the
glass cutting techniques therein must have been hearsay, I can’t
remember actually using them. What I do use is a hardware store glass
cutter to circumscribe a free-hand scratch, which is tapped out from the
inside until broken and sanded with a cloth-backed fine emery paper for
safety. Learn to cultivate a taste in wine according to the shape of the
bottleneck. Bordeaux (Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot grapes) is the guitar
player’s wine of choice. Sediment =square shoulders =straight necks. I
average one in three usable cuts, which means I just have to drink more
wine. Hey, Art is tough. I do keep the old reliable copper slide in the
National case, in the event of a breakage emergency.

These days, there is a whole competitive market in manufactured slides
of various composition. The glass ones tend to be of what was called in
chemistry class, German soft glass, which is easier to work, but by its
very softness, less desirable then a harder wine bottle which gives a
brighter sound.

One small note for anyone who does find that article, the last bit of
TAB in the text, intended to illustrate possibilities in slide attack,
uses the pick-up to the tune and should have only one bar line, before
the last double stop. Also, on the subject of pitch, thanks to the
famous complete Johnson double CD box, we now know that the 1936
sessions in San Antonio, are all sharp (fast on playback) anywhere from
a semi-tone to a tri-tone, which also distorts the timbre and tempo.
This would indicate line voltage problems, i.e. the cutter ran slow.
Anybody know when the hysteresis motor was invented? The 1937 sessions
in Dallas play back on pitch and are what the man actually sounded like.