String Bending Lesson

In this video, I explain the correct technique for “string bends” and also the importance of getting bent notes to the correct pitch. I’ll also show you how to tell if two notes are the same pitch (which is also useful for tuning) because two notes that are nearly the same pitch almost sound like they are fighting with each other (which is dissonance I guess).

How to Bend on Guitar

The exercises I’m talking about is this one:

…but they wont help unless you practice them properly. You want to use your arm (as I demonstrate in the video) to provide the power, and your fingers just to grip the string. You’ll achieve this best by placing your thumb up over the top of the neck, and using it almost like a pivot.

Sometimes, especially when you first learn this technique, the other strings can get caught on your fingernails as you move the string; this problem can be due to you moving your fingers instead of your arm. When you twist from the arm, your fingers naturally angle themselves on the string, whereas when you move your fingers to get the bend you end up pushing your finger under the next string (if you don’t believe me, try it yourself, first by moving your finger, then by twisting your wrist with your thumb at the top, and you’ll see what I mean).

Getting a Grip

Sometimes you’ll also need to “support” the fretting finger with others- and “support” is in quotation marks for a reason! The support is not for strength or more power, because the power is coming from the arm; the support is for grip.

Think about it: the more power you’re sending in to bend the string, the more likely it is that your finger will slip, therefore you need more grip.

For example: say you were bending a note with your third finger. You may decide to place your first and second fingers on the same string, behind your third finger- not necessarily aligned to a fret (they don’t have to be, they’re not playing notes themselves!). Then move your thumb up over the top of the neck and twist your arm. If you’ve done it right, your fingers hold on to the string and it bends as you twist.

Perfect Pitch

The second most important thing about bending is: always bend to a note. Now, this gets kind of complicated because the notes that you’ll want to bend to aren’t always the same ones as the frets. For practice reasons, practice bending up to a note that you can fret and getting it spot on- like the example of unison bends that I use.

The complicated part is (are you ready for this?): the notes in western music are divided into 12 semitones (each half a tone wide), and these basically align with the frets on a guitar (ever wondered why the notes repeat after the 12th fret?). The problem is that when Blues music came along (along with other types of “non-western” influenced musical styles), it divided the octave (those 12 semitones) into 24 quartertones.

So, when you’re bending notes on a guitar, you’re actually thinking in terms of quartertones (each quartertone being “half a fret”). This is why you sometimes see 1/2, or 3 1/2 fret bends in tab- but you’ll probably never see “bend to somewhere random”! So always have an idea where you’re bending to before you start to bend…

…if you want your music sounding in tune, that is…

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I hope this has helped,
Rob.

June 1, 2011 at 5:04 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises, The Blues | No comments