Description:

Paolo Bonfanti: Bottleneck Guitar Language: English Media: Audio on line Pages: 112 Any guitar (acoustic or electric) can be played with a bottleneck, as long as two simple conditions are followed: 1) string action on the fretboard must be kept higher than one used in “standard” playing. Leaning the bottleneck on the strings make them move a little bit closer to the fingerboard, so the more the action is reasonably high, the less string buzzing and fretboard hitting oc- curs. 2) string gauge (assuming that string bending is not used) must be bigger than the usual, so the strings can offer more resistance to the bottleneck and they don’t get pressed too close to the fingerboard. It would be better to have a guitar that is set up specifally for slide playing, considering that it will be often tuned to an “open” tuning. You can use bare right hand fingers to play, thumb and finger picks, pick and fingers or just a flat pick (this is very uncommon). Bottlenecks can be built out of several different materials: glass, steel, copper, brass and have different length, width, caliber and thickness. My advice is to buy a bottleneck that is not too light and thin and as long as the finger that will hold it. Usually, fairly consistent weight and thickness are synonymous with of clean sound and good sustain.

Categories: