Re: Bottleneck question

Lee wrote:
I am learning All along the Watchtower and this version has a slide section in it. It starts at fret 15 > 2 on the D,G,B strings and I was hoping to eventually play it on the 12 string setting on my Variax.

Problem is the wound strings sound terrible (Elixir Electric 10's).

I never played bottleneck before so is it worth sticking with this and practicing more or is it a waste of time and always going to sound bad on wound strings?



I once experimented by putting flatwounds on my Tele, thinking it would give my slide playing a smoother sound. I actually didn't like it and switched back to regular strings.
Slide can have a pretty earthy, primitive sound. Listen to Ry Cooder: a lot of extra noises and he even bumps the frets sometimes, but it sounds great to me. Organic, eh?
It takes a lot of playing to develop a feel for playing slide. I remember thinking that I'd never get past sounding horrible. At least now I've gotten past thinking that I sound horrible, if you can see the distinction.
.

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