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Recently I helped present a slide guitar master class at the Bath International Guitar Festival. The slide guitar seminar was open to all students and only one or two came with their guitars specially rigged up for the occasion. The others struggled throughout the afternoon and were barely able to participate in the session.

My point here is that setting up your guitar correctly is an absolute must for all those serious about playing slide. There are various ways of going about this I suggest you use this quick fix that allows you to revert your guitar back to normal with the minimum of fuss.

We need to raise the action slightly and we can do this by removing the strings and tapping out the nut at the end of the fret board. Place a small shim beneath the nut and replace, the shim should be about .5mill thick at the very most, a strip of an old 35-mill film negative will suffice. This should just help clear the strings of the fret board enough to stop your slide banging on the frets.

Next the bridge needs the same treatment, if you are fortunate enough have an acoustic that has adjusters then raise the saddle slightly, slightly more on the treble side. If you have a traditional style acoustic bridge then remove the saddle (you might need needle nose pliers) You need to put in a shim and replace the saddle in order to raise the action slightly. Make a shim by cutting of a slice from an old credit card, before you replace the saddle just pack a small single layer piece of paper, shim width, underneath the treble side, this also will help raise the top strings slightly more. The majority of your slide work will take place on the upper strings so it makes sense to do this.

Your strings should now sit slightly higher on the treble side, many finger positions used by the player during slide accompaniment take place on the lower strings, if the action is too high here the guitar will sound out of tune if the lower strings are too high.