Appendix

Slide Guitar Techniques

     There are two basic ways of playing the guitar in slide style. One is primarily based on the "Spanish Guitar" style of playing which is holding the guitar upright in the lap. The object used as a slide is held or placed on a finger and played in the conventional guitar style with the slide coming from underneath the neck as the body of the guitar is held horizontally across the chest of the player. The "Hawaiian" style has the guitar being layed across the players lap and the slide being placed down on the neck of the guitar, approaching the instrument from above.

     Traditionally the "Spanish" style has been used by the players of the Mississippi blues tradition. Howard Odum mentions this in his article on Negro folk music in regards to the "knife-song". He says the songs name "is derived from the act of running the back of a knife along the strings of the instrument, the player making it "sing and talk" with skill." (Odum pg. 261) Odum also goes on to say some players also "play with a piece of bone, polished and smooth, which they slip over a finger, and alternate between picking the strings and rubbing them." (Odum pg. 261) The style is also commonly referred to as "bottleneck guitar" in which the top end of a bottle is slid over the finger and used as a slide. Today most players commonly use a piece of steel or some other metal, in addition to the bottleneck, while the slide made of bone or a flat end of the knife are not in common usage.

     As the name implies, the "Hawaiian" style is the method favored by Hawaiian players. Hawaiian players use a steel bar as well as "blunted sailors' IXL steel 'jack-knives (clasp knives)". (Life pg. 17) While the original players of Hawaiian guitar played on "Spanish" guitars some players added large "nuts" on their guitars to raise the strings from the neck of the guitar in order to make it easier for the player to slide the object over the guitar's neck without having the slide come in contact with the frets of the instrument. This innovation led to a number of new instruments being produced for this playing method.

     By the early 1900's guitars with hollow necks with the nuts enabling the raised guitar strings were being produced. These instruments were being made by a number of guitar companies. Makers such as Weissenborn and Knutsen were specializing in these instruments while bigger companies such as Gibson and Washburn were adding these guitars to their normal guitar productions. The National Guitar Company was searching for ways to amplify the guitar and made a number of steel bodied instruments with resonators placed in the bodies. This company made a number of Hawaiian models (guitars with raised nuts, action, etc) as well as standard models that became widely used by Hawaiian players. The standard models also became popular with blues players.

    During this same period at National the development of electric guitars was also being experimented with. The first instrument in production commonly known as the "frying pan" was produced in 1929 and became popular with Hawaiian players as well. The guitar got its name from its body's resemblance to a frying pan. This instrument had a very small body and was played in the lap manner. This instrument became very popular with Hawaiian players and is commonly referred to as a "steel" guitar.

     Hawaiian slide guitar is also sometimes labelled "steel guitar". The names are so commonly intermixed that it is hard to conclude which was titled before the other. The Hawaiian tradition may have been called "steel" guitar after the steel bar that was used as a slider. The title could have also been given to the style after the early connection with the steel body guitar, that was manufactured by National for the Hawaiian players, before the electric "frying pan" model. Another theory could be given to the "frying pan" guitar being first labelled as the steel because it was also constructed of steel.