DC Guitar Tries The Jetslide

What the Heck is a Jetslide?

It's kind of hard to describe. And from what I'm told, nobody reads nowadays anyway. Apparently everybody still likes pictures though.

So the good news is that instead of toiling here at the computer typing, I can just cull a few thousand words from the internet.

Here's Jetslide's own 1000 words about itself with their company logo:



The pix above show you, clockwise from bottom left: a jetslide, a Jetslide with a glass sleeve, Jetslide in use, jetslide 'standing by'. This mosaic gives you, or I think, should give a fairly good idea of Jetslide's intended use.

For those still unsure of the Jetslide's unique properties, this .gif from Tone Toys fills in the blanks, I think:



The conceit of that the jetslide, a brass or steel bar mounted on a ring, is that it allows you to play slide, yet it also has a 'standby mode' where you regain the capacity to use all of your fingers for fretting: This clever little toy allows you to switch from fretted playing to slide literally instantly. Quite a boon for those of us who favor fancy fretwork along with our slide.

I've looked through Youtube to find a really good video of it. The best one is in German. Watch here:



Here's Sven's own translation.

"To give you a brief translation of what I'm saying in in the video. 'Flaschenpost' means 'Message in a bottle' and it's the title for a series of articles I wrote in my weblog about bottleneck and slide guitar stuff. This is the second video and especially about the JetSlide which I really like as a alternative to standard bottlenecks because it allows you to use all of your fingers for fretting and I really like the brass version because it's warm tone (on electric guitar I prefer the chrome one). I talk about that there are 3 versions of the JetSlide and that I've got the brass and the chrome one and I look forward to test the glass version one day. And then I show how easy it is to use the JetSlide and that the main advantage for me is that the bottleneck-finger isn't forced to be stiff all the time like on a standard bottleneck." Sven Augustin

I received a few Jetslides a week or so ago and I've been testing out the different sizes, materials, and learning about how this clever little device can be useful. I already find the Jetslide very comfortable. More comfortable than a traditional slide IMHO.

I'll be back with more things to say about the Jetslide. For now, however, I take it as a very good sign that I have been playing a lot more slide guitar since I received my Jetslide. That can't be bad.

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