For years I have played bottleneck on my old National Duolian, so my bottleneck technique is all about the old beast. Somehow, in making the transition to electric slide, I need to change my technique and my entire approach to the instrument. I can’t bang on the thing like I do with the National. In fact, it would really be cool if I could find an old hollow-bodied electric to be my slide guitar, kind of like that nasty old Harmony guitar Chris Rice used to play on.

Practice with the metronome on 2 & 4; practice adding extra beats to phrases (odd measures of 6/4 or 6/8); practice odd meters for blues (e.g., 7/4, 7/8, 5/8, 8/4 [from Indian music]); try adding odd rhythms (talas) to blues phrases; try to hit notes clean, but figure out where to add microtonal inflections and chord tones; play against backing tracks; setup my Boss Loop Station, taking the volume pedal off the board; better yet, setup the Loop Station separate from the pedal board, buy a separate power supply; figure out where the noise is coming from my pedalboard and address it; sell my Fender Amp and get a smaller one (the Vox amp is as big and loud as I need to go); look for a Princeton Reverb amp; ask Beazle if he wants to switch amps.

Play along with recordings and really work out what some of these slide players are doing. Slide adds a vocal quality to the instrument, so play along with singers. Try to phrase just like Son House, Muddy Waters, and Big Mama Thornton. Better yet, learn to phrase like Bessie Smith. Learn to play along with Sun Ra compositions; I should be able to riff like the horns, but there are a few melodies it would be cool to work out.

More tunes in open-D/E:

  1. “Standing In My Doorway Crying,” Jesse Mae Hemphill
  2. “I’m Crazy About You Baby,” Fred McDowell
  3. “Rambling On My Mind,” Robert Johnson
  4. “Dust My Broom,” Robert Johnson & Elmore James
  5. “Preaching Blues,” Robert Johnson & Son House

Tunes in open-G:

  1. “That’s Alright,” Fred McDowell
  2. “Black Cat Bone,” Jesse Mae Hemphill
  3. “Rolling and Tumbling,” Hambone Willie Newbern
  4. “Dough Roller Blues,” Ranie Burnette
  5. “Banty Rooster,” Charlie Patton & Son House
  6. “County Farm Blues,” Son House (a riff on Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave’s Kept Clean”)
  7. “Kokomo Blues,” Kokomo Arnold, Scrapper Blackwell, & Stefan Grossman

Spend some more time checking out Derek Trucks on YouTube; figure out what he is doing with volume and touch. Stay away from Duane Allman’s playing since that has become a cliched way of playing electric bottleneck.

Practice the lap steel guitar. See if I can work up at least a couple of tunes I can play on lap steel with a band. I’ll bet some Blind Willie Johnson tunes like “God Moves on the Water” would sound really good on lap steel.