Sliding on the guitar is just another technique that gives more interest and life to notes. The idea is that you are going to fret a note and then move (slide) to another fret without taking the pressure off your finger as you move. Below are some of the basic variations on the guitar slide technique.
Sliding Technique on the Guitar
(Video Guitar Lesson)
 |
Ascending Legato Slide – In this example you are fretting the note on the 3rd string, 5th fret and sliding up to the 7th fret. The curved line over top is used to indicate that this is a legato slide. This basically means that you are not going to pick the note at the 7th fret. |
 |
Descending Legato Slide – In this example you are fretting the note on the 3rd string, 7th fret and sliding down to the 5th fret. Again the curved line over top is used to indicate that this is a legato slide. |
 |
Ascending Picked Slide – Here you are fretting the note on the 3rd string, 5th fret and sliding up to the 9th fret. But because there is not a curved line over the top, you are going to pick the note at the 9th fret after sliding. |
 |
Descending Picked Slide – This is the same as above, only sliding down. |
 |
Ornament Slide Up – Here you are sliding up to the 3rd string, 9th fret from an undetermined fret below (usually 2-3 frets). The idea here is that you are not hearing 2 notes, as in the examples above. This is a quick slide, and is heard as one note. The slide is just heard as a “decoration” of the note you are going to. An important idea is the start your hand moving in the direction of your destination note before starting to press down on the strings. |
 |
Ornament Slide Down – This is the same idea as the ornament slide from below. You are starting from a few frets above the note you and sliding down the 3rd string, 2nd fret. |
 |
Effect Slide Down – Unlike the other slides above, this one does not have a destination. You are not sliding to a particular note. Here you are playing the 3rd string, 12thfret, and then sliding downward. At some point during the downward slide, you release the pressure on your fingers but you do not lift completely off of the string. The end result is just a downward slide effect.If you do not release the pressure on you finger and stop your hand, you will end up hearing some note as a stopping point. If you end up letting go of the string, you will hear and open string. |
 |
Effect Slide Up – This is the same idea as the downward version just going from a low note up the neck. |
 |
Effect Slide Up and Down – Here you are sliding up, and then back down but not really hearing a specific starting or ending note. This is hard to notate specifically. Because of this the notation is usually a little more detailed than the true spirit of the effect. In this example, think about the 12th fret being approximately where you reverse directions. If it is the 11th or the 13th, you will not really hear much of a difference. |
All of these types of slides on the guitar can be played with 2 or more notes as well.
