Sliding between glass and guitars

In 2013, the Festival of Glass will feature a greater diversity of events than it has done previously, offering visitors greater insights into the multi-faceted world of glass.

The first of the new events will be a Bottleneck Guitar Night at the Harvest Moon Café in Portarlington Road. While many guitarists create notes by pressing on the frets of their instrument, bottleneck guitarists create notes by sliding the cut-off neck of a glass bottle up and down their strings. Some use a modification of the original bottleneck - a metal, plastic or resin tube - but the principle remains the same.

The Festival of Glass attracted more than 6,000 visitors in 2011 and 6,500 in 2012, showing that there is great public interest in the world glass and plenty of glass artists, artisans and craftspeople doing great things with glass. On the Bottleneck Guitar Night, it will be guitarists' turn to show what they can do with glass!

The date and time of the event are being confirmed - keep watching this space!

Here are some examples of bottleneck guitar playing:
Bob Brozman playing Highway 49 Blues using a glass bottleneck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzfgagmrBk&feature=related

Roy Rogers playing Avalanche using a plastic bottleneck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCdEjLupuAo&feature=relmfu

Bonnie Rait (with John Lee Hooker) playing I'm in the mood using a resin bottleneck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQxgyVydKy8&feature=related