Recently, Reverb released two video interviews with Warren Haynes about his prolific slide guitar technique. Across the two videos, the Gov’t Mule and former Allman Brothers Band guitarist discusses the benefits of using standard tuning as well as his left- and right-hand playing techniques. In the first video about tuning, Haynes talks about how he started learning slide guitar in standard tuning at the age of fourteen and found it frustrating. After getting advice to change to open tuning, slide guitar became easier for Haynes, though eventually, the guitarist moved back to playing standard tuning, noting, “I realized that it gave me more of my own voice to play in standard tuning. I could play stuff that was less conventional and less traditional, and I could kind of play whatever popped into my head because it was the same tuning I was accustomed to.”
Revolutions Come And Revolutions Go, But Warren Haynes Is Here To Stay [Interview/Album Stream]
From there, he talks about emulating open tuning while in standard tuning as well as some of his influences like Johnny Winter, Duane Allman, Lowell George, Ry Cooder, and David Lindley, and their preferences in playing. To close out the short video, Haynes again reiterates why he tends to primarily play in open tuning, closing with, “I like being able to decide moment-by-moment am I going to play slide or just regular guitar? There are a lot of moments during the night where I’ll just go and pick up the slide and start playing, whether I’ve played it on that song or not, or vice-versa. It’s a way of not having to switch guitars everytime you get a whim.”
In the second video, Haynes speaks on his right-hand slide technique and his left-hand muting technique while demonstrating them and explaining their necessity. More informational in tone than the first video, Haynes patiently describes his own technique, starting first with the importance of muting in order to “keep any unwanted strings from ringing,” which he identifies as “the step that really gets you to the next level.” From there, the guitarist shows the various ways to play the same note in different positions, and how the position on the neck affects tone, stating, “It’s nice to apply that contrast. There are times when I’ll play the thin version of a note a few times and then go up to the fat one, just for the dramatic effect that a singer would use.”
To end out the second video, Warren Haynes speaks about the slide guitar at large, “One of the cool things about slide guitar is that there are all the notes in between the notes that you don’t have on piano. It makes it easier to emulate a human voice, which is kind of the whole point. The human voice is the greatest instrument of all, and there are a lot of instruments that are trying to sound like they’re singing, and that’s what I’ve always been attracted to.”