Son House — £200 · Beginner Rig

• Tune to open G — press the slide straight across the fret to play chords
• Use a heavy slide (glass or thick metal) for more mass and sustain
• Mute strings behind the slide with the fretting-hand fingers to kill unwanted noise
• Play with bare fingers — the thumb thumps bass strings while fingers pick trebles
• Let the slide rest lightly on the strings without pressing down to the fret
• Open A tuning (EAEACE) is Son House's primary slide tuning — the open strings form an A major chord, and barring all six strings at the fifth fret produces a D major chord. The I, IV, and V positions in a 12-bar blues become physically automatic once the tuning is internalised
• The slide is held with the ring or middle finger with the other fingers extended away from the neck — these floating fingers prevent accidental string contact that would deaden the slide sound. The weight of the slide does the work; no additional downward pressure is needed
• Right-hand percussive tapping on the guitar body creates the rhythmic underpinning — Son House tapped the face of the guitar with his picking hand to produce a drum-like beat simultaneously with the slide melody. This is part of the authentic performance technique, not an optional addition

• ✗Using high-gain distortion — hollowbody guitars are designed for clean and light-drive use. High gain causes uncontrollable acoustic resonance that the pickup amplifies as noise.
• ✗Playing a vintage-voiced amp at low volume — the warmth and bloom of these amps comes from the power tubes working. At low volume the tone is flat and uninspiring compared to the amp's potential.
• ✗Playing at bedroom volume expecting amp-driven tone — the power-tube saturation that defines this gain structure only occurs when the amp is working at substantial output. This is not replicable at low volumes.
• ✗Ignoring the guitar volume knob — rolling back to 6-7 is your rhythm setting; 10 is for leads. Most players leave it at 10 and miss the entire dynamic vocabulary.
• ✗Using a humbucker where single coils are needed — the quack, string definition, and high-frequency air of single coils cannot be EQ'd into a humbucker

Son House's tone is bone-dry acoustic resonance: a National steel-body resonator guitar or cheap Stella acoustic, bottleneck slide on the little finger, strings tuned to open G or open A. The sound is deliberate and percussive — slide phrases struck hard with bare fingers, bass strings thumped rhythmically. There is no amplification, no effects, no reverb. The power comes from the contrast between loud percussive thumb-slapped bass notes and singing slide phrases on the treble strings. A heavy-gauge string set helps maintain tension in open tuning and provides the resistance that makes the slide sing.