CB, Foggers brought it to my attention...and I'm REAL glad!

Awesome!

Hello Tara, thanks for the compliment! The MD is a baritone tune AEa; it is indeed a 5 stringed one, given that both the melody and middles strings are double. We built it that way to give a fuller sound, as I wanted it mainly for accompanying singing.

On this clip the slide I am using is a glass one. When the MD was in its final build stages (my OH built it) I was testing the height of the action and quite randonly had a glass guitar slide to hand, and by experimenting found that it did indeed work just as well as on any other stringed instrument. You can get a glass slide from any shop that sells guitars- the one I am using is a Dunlop 210; the slide needs to be a good fit on your finger so you can control it. There is no hard and fast rule about which finger to use, butfor lapstyle playing,either of the middle 2 is a good idea, as you need to gently damp thestrings to the left of the slide with a finger, sothat the tone from that side of the strings does not ring out.

I have since had some advice from slide guitar player and have changed to a quite heavy brass slide as the heavier slide gives a longer sustain to the notes. I had tried a cheap brass slide before and did not like the "tinny" sound I got; but my helpful advisor explained that it needs to have thick walls and be quite heavy,which does make it a bit more expensive.

The other thing to be aware of is that the "action" (i.e. the height of strings above the fretboard) needs to be higher than usual on the instrument, otherwise the slide rattles all over the fret wires. And when using a slide you don't press all the way down as with a noter or your fingers. The slide just needs to rest over the fret wire in a straight line.

It is great fun and I spend a lot of time noodling around to see what I can do with it.