STAR VIDEO

Brett Garsed

We welcome back our virtuoso friend from Down Under for another exclusive masterclass. If you’ve always wanted to get into slide but never quite punched through the barrier, Jon Bishop says this one’s for you.

ON VIDEO

ABILITY RATING

Info https://bit.ly/4ekuh7c

Key Various

Tempo 105 bpm

Moderate ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

Will improve your…

✓ Ability to mute strings when playing slide

✓ Good slide intonation

✓ Playing slide in regular tuning

Australian guitar ace Brett Garsed is a master at so many techniques, from hybrid-picked high-speed licks to liquid legato flurries, and, as he shows us this month, a unique and highly versatile slide style. However, Brett is also an inspiring teacher, so for this lesson we challenged him to dial it back a bit and come up with 10 easy level slide licks before going for it on a final solo. In typical fashion, Brett went one step further and designed a great lesson that uses one simple idea and expands on it to help take your slide playing from zero to hero!

First let’s take a look at the basics of good slide technique. Learning to play slide guitar has a couple of significant barriers to entry. The first is establishing a good and consistent contact between the slide and the string. You may find heavier strings and a higher action can help here, but Brett prefers and gets great results on a standard electric guitar setup in standard tuning, due to the convenience of not having to switch guitars every time slide is required (just like Jeff Beck used to do and Paul Gilbert still does). The second barrier is good intonation, and for this Brett advises placing the slide directly over the fret. This requires a bit of practice so the first few examples focus on attaining and maintaining good intonation.