Bottlenecks

Rory Gallagher a écrit:For playing bottleneck on the National you'd have to use the steel one, because a glass bottleneck would be just too smooth altogether. I use either the steel or the copper, which has got more of a sting.

Son House, if you listen to any of his records, always used a bit of copper piping and I use that on the small finger in order to get over the twelfth fret because the later Dobros and Nationals joined the body at the 14th fret, but this joins at the 12th.

I also use the steel for electric slide if it's going to be a really stinging sound, but if I want more of a steel guitar type round sound I use this aspirin bottle on the ring finger. It's an American Corsidon aspirin, and they're good cold tablets actually. Duane Allman used to use this sort of thing, and I think Toddy Daniels too. It's very handy because it doesn't fall off your finger, and for one dollar 79 you get a great bottleneck.

I've had various wine bottlenecks, but I find this is really the best, because it’s so smooth. I buy as many as I can when I'm over there because you can't get them here. I've used ones I've made myself from microphone stands, cutting off a few inches, but usually you find there's only the one.

Ry Cooder uses only a wine bottle, and John Hammond and Lowell George use these socket wrenches from Sears Roebuck, an American department store. They use six/eight inch wrenches which fit the small ringer, and they're really heavy, and very good.

I play bottleneck with ordinary tuning on Secret Agent, or Jacknife Beat, or any of those numbers.

That would be sort of the way Earl Hooker does it, he plays a number and out of nowhere the slide comes in. Usually you get to play in E and D, but now I can play slide in the ordinary tuning in any key at all, and it's got a totally different character to the open tuning style, because that's very much for more traditional country blues. In the open tuning style you're not limited chord-wise, but you have to work within drone chords and sevenths and things like that, whereas with the other style you can play for instance a really difficult jazz number and all of a sudden get out the bottleneck. That’s stretching it you know, but the limitation of the ordinary tuning is that you can't get the full Elmore James sweep, although you can almost get it. People like Jeff Beck and Lowell George play in ordinary tuning except for the first string which they take down to D. That gives them a sort of G chord on the twelfth fret. I find that a bit awkward. Of course I use the capo a lot too.

Quand vous jouez de la slide, utilisez-vous un médiator ?

Ouai, médiator et doigts. Aussi je varie la slide. Parfois j’utilise une bouteille de corricidine sur mon annulaire, ou quelque fois sur mon auriculaire. Alors que parfois j’utilise un bottleneck en laiton si je joue sur National. Mais si je joue complètement électrique je joue avec le bottleneck en métal.

Entendez-vous des différences de tons entre ces différents matériaux ?

J’en entend bien sûr, ouai. Le verre est évidemment plus - je ne dirai pas hawaïen - mais plus tendre et doux. Le laiton ou le cuivre est très dur, si vous voulez obtenir une sorte d’attaque à la Son House. C’est presque trop dur tout le temps. L’acier est un bon compromis. Cela dépend de la guitare que vous jouez.

Utilisez-vous une clé à douille comme Muddy ou une slide en métal ?

Une slide en métal. J’ai une clé à douille parce que John Hammond m’a dit qu’il en utilisait une. Et Lowell George avec qui nous avons joué en avait une aussi. Elles sont fantastiques mais vous avez vraiment besoin de cordes épaisses. Je ne sais pas lesquelles j’utilise - une 5/8 ou 7/8 ou quoique ça puisse être. Elles sont fantastiques mais si vous jouez plus que quelques titres, elles tirent votre annulaire vers le bas. Elles sont très lourdes mais elles sont idéales pour la slide. C’est mon principal reproche - non pas que j’aime les slides légères, mais vous ne voulez pas qu’elles vous fatiguent la main.

Réglez-vous une action différente si vous jouez de la slide ou avez-vous une guitare spéciale pour ça ?

J’ai une Gretsch Corvette qui est en Open de Sol ou Open de La, cela dépend de la chanson, et j’y mets des cordes comme 0.13 à 0.50, quelque chose comme ça - médium. Mes cordes habituelles sont quelques choses comme 0.10 à 0.44 et l’action est assez haute. Alors c’est bon pour la slide. Mais pour vraiment jouer de la slide en open tuning il faut des cordes lourdes. Mais je peux me débrouiller avec les deux. J’essaie de toute façon.

What do you use for a slide?

RORY: It depends; I shift around. I sometimes use a bottleneck on my ring finger for electric stuff; otherwise I've got two stainless steel tubes, which I sometimes use on my small finger or the ring finger. They get a more stinging, Muddy Waters sound. You get a different sound depending on what slide you use. For instance, if you're playing slide on a National with a glass slide, forget it. You have to have something like steel or, even better, copper. Son House used copper, and I've got one of those as well.

Were these slides store-bought items, or you just go to a hardware shop?

RORY: I went to a hardware shop and got the proverbial bit of piping chopped up and got a Brillo pad out and shone it up. There's a bit of surface noise there, but Son House has that sound; it's best, because it clings to the strings. I used to use copper on electric as well, but I found that the stainless steel was a pretty good compromise between the copper or bronze and the glass. Glass is nice, because it works a little more like a Hawaiian or lap steel guitar; it's sweeter and softer. I change my mind every couple of gigs.

Sinner Girl a écrit:I wonder if anyone knows the manufacturer(brend)of the metal slide, used by Rory??

Chino a écrit:

Sinner Girl a écrit:I wonder if anyone knows the manufacturer(brend)of the metal slide, used by Rory??

As far as I'm concerned, unfortunately not.

Emi a écrit:Melina ask to Dwana on FB, she has posted a photography on her FB page of a steel bottleneck that Rory send to her!

Sinner Girl a écrit:Dwana says that writing on the slide(brend) Wes.