It doesn’t bend over, but it is still a deliberate plucking of the string. You don’t want to just drag the thumb across the string to the next string. Your thumb should push past the first string to the second, not be pulled across it.

Otherwise you don’t get good tone and your timing will be off (because when you drag a finger across a string rather than actively pluck it you aren’t in complete control as to when the string will release from your finger, same reason why you keep your fingers curved in the top finger joint and don’t let them hyper extend back when plucking).

Actually, there are two types of slides – the irish ornament and the playing technique mentioned above :). The discussion is indeed about 1-1-2-3-4 fingerings and can also apply to 4-4-3-2-1 (also to 3-3-2-1? Never seen it, I think).

Glisses could be reduced to a bunch of slides in a row, right? There’s obviously some overlap of the terms, and it gets a little tricky when you’re only hitting a few strings, but for one string they’re definitely referred to as slides.

I half agree with Tony. Yes, your thumb needs to “pluck” the upper string and then land on the lower string instead of folding into your hand, but your hand will need to move ever so slightly so that your thumb is in the correct position to play the second note. You definitely don’t drag your finger like you would in a gliss.

Anchors are very good, but not necessary – but practice with an anchor on or else you won’t learn how to pluck the string instead of drag your thumb.

You can do a slide with any finger. I can do a three downward scales at once with my right hand alone, but it requires the player to slide all four fingers in a particular pattern. I’ve never seen music calling for 2 or 3 slides.

~Sam

I find it can help to think of pushing from the thumb tip (or finger tip) rather than pulling from the base of the thumb (or finger).

You can already play the second note of the slide, it is just a normal note after all.