“Many guitarists are wary of getting into slide playing. This is a great way to dive in”: How to play slide guitar in standard tuning

Charlie Starr takes a slide solo when playing a custom-tooled Telecaster onstage with Brandon Still of Backberry Smoke.

A chief consideration when playing with a slide is the tuning. Many of our favorite slide players – Elmore James, Duane Allman, Johnny Winter, Derek Trucks – play slide almost exclusively in an open tuning, such as open E or G.

One great benefit of using an open tuning is that you can lay the slide across the strings at a given fret and sound a pleasing major chord.