I'm trying to play a song with lots of slides ("Honky Tonk Women"), and I found myself incapable of producing a convincing sound out of them. Sometimes I don't stop sliding exactly at the fret I'm supposed to (sometimes I stop before, sometimes after), and many times my finger kind of "rolls over" the string while sliding.
What is the correct technique? What are some good exercises to improve it?
Practice the slides in isolation.
Use each finger and practice them on each string, sliding 1 fret, 2 frets, 3 frets and then large slides of 10 frets.
Make the slides slow at first ensuring they sound smooth and there is no break in sound.
Practicing like this is a great way to focus on those weaker areas.
I don't think there is a 'correct' or 'wrong' way to slides. As with all techniques, practice makes perfect. Given enough time you'll be able to do 12-fret slides accurately. There's little limitation to how good you can get with practice. Honkey Tonk Women has nothing compared to, say, some Polyphia songs.
You might want to make up some exercises using various fingers and intervals to slide across. For example, on high E sliding up for x frets, sliding up then down for x frets, x up and y down. You can tie it to any melodic line or a lick so you can get used to fluently transitioning from picking to sliding. Use a metronome, of course.
