Around New Year, I was at the Whare Flat folk festival in Dunedin; my second time around.
I attended a few workshops: Bluegrass Jam, Old-time Music Jam, and one about slide guitar.
Tony Burt let me use his own personal resonator guitar, and I had great fun.
https://www.tonyburt-creative.com
So, I’ve ordered Yet Another Guitar – a Gretsch G9210 Boxcar Square Neck Resonator. I wish I could afford a real Dobro, but as I am just getting my feet wet, the Gretsch will most certainly do.
I did not know, but it turns out there are multiple types of slide guitar: some are played like regular guitars, some are played while they lie on the lap.
The ‘regular’ ones have a round neck, and the strings are not too high above the frets, so you can either fret them normally with your fingers, or use a slide or bottleneck around your finger to play them.
The ‘square neck’ ones are the ones you hold flat on your lap. There the strings are much higher above the frets: the frets only serve as an indication of where the tone lies, and you use a steel slider to change the tone.
These guitars are often tuned in all kinds of tunings; when I played Tony’s guitar, it was tuned G D B G D B.
I love the totally different sound coming from these guitars. Hope I manage to learn to play it properly.