Guys, very interesting posts here, all legit in my opinion from a certain perspective. It's an interesting topic, so I can't help but want to weigh in! Here's my .02...

Bending. It's an articulation. There are some times single note bends, double stops, triple-stops and more. Muscle memory is a very small part of it I'm afraid; What if you are playing a Eminor7 chord, and really, really want the sound of a b9 to drive home the 'phrygian' sound? Easy-peasy if you're doing it from an 'E' you just bend up to an 'F'. Half step bend, no sweat. What if it's from the min7 that you're bending from? An acquired taste, to be sure.

What if you're playing a Baritone? Or your Strat busted a string and you're stuck with your Les Paul at a gig? Two totally different neck scales.

Do you rely on muscle memory? Nope. It's part of it, but those funny looking things on the side of your head that connect to your mind and soul should dictate what you do, and how, depending on what you want to achieve.

Listen. Yngwie vs Vai. Both good benders, both totally different. BB King vs Brad Paisley. Night and day, both awesome. Guthrie, also awesome.

I say this as my final statement; there is no 'one' way to approach learning to do stuff. I think the more varied your approach, and multiple methods you try will help you in the end. Some people will go for a systematic, physical approach, others will just use their ears and play what sounds good! (If it sounds good it will be) Just gotta be sure you're having fun whatever it is you are up to... hahaha

Now, watch these guys...

And my favourite guitarist at the moment

Oh hey, Cliff as far as not being sure of having hit the right note on a bend until after you've hit it, this is a common affliction; The cure? Sing some notes on a piano. Start with just doing a C major scale, do re mi fa sol la ti do, and sing 'em. Right as you play 'em.

Then, try to sing the whole thing by your self and see if you end up anywhere close to the notes. Tip of the iceberg, but a starting point.


Developing good relative pitch and sight singing/transcription practice will help...

Ear training; Something to think about, my friends.

Great vids and great advice. Thanks, Scott.

You know, I think until I can do that singing exercise you mention, I can't really call myself a musician. This year's *real* challenge for me....

I think, like a lot of things with guitar, it's part muscle memory and part ear. Your hand needs to know what it feels like to bend the G string up a half step, but your ear also needs to know when you hit the correct note.

There is the exercise where you play a note from a scale and try to bend to the next note. This works well. I've found in my personal experience the best thing is jam to backing tracks. Find a backing track in whatever key you want and just start noodling around. Start bending. Start trying some things. Then you'll really know what you need to work on. You need to be able to hear when you're getting it right and hear when you're getting it wrong. You do this over and over for a long time and you'll get better at it.

Pebber has always said enroll at your local community college and do some ear training. You can even do some at home by singing along with scales. I do not have perfect pitch by any means but I have fairly decent relative pitch having taken some sight singing classes and working with Pebber and singing scales it gets better and better. You have to work it. So much to work on!!!

This reminds me I remember doing a few videos about a year ago on bending. And nobody seemed to care! So I pulled them down. Bending is very important to rock guitar. It's one of the tools that help make Vai and Yngwie and those guys sound so expressive and emotive.

Thanks Ursin. I agree about bending being so important. If I had a choice between mastering that and mastering playing quickly, there's no question in my mind.

Quote: Cliff wrote in post #33

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Thanks Ursin. I agree about bending being so important. If I had a choice between mastering that and mastering playing quickly, there's no question in my mind.

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Damon - I've been thinking some about what you said about slow bends, and I'm not sure I agree at all. When I bring to my mind some of my favorite bends in guitar solos, more often than not they're slow and dramatic bends. Very musical in my opinion. This not one of my favorite songs by any means, but a great example of what I'm saying.

Screw it - once again I can't post links. I'm referring to The Sky Is Crying by Stevie Ray Vaughn.

I know The Sky Is Crying quite well, as well as the rest of SRV's catalog. His cover of Little Wing is still in my top 10 favorite songs. He's one of 3 or 4 musicians/bands that got me to buy a guitar 21 years ago now. Anyway, in re-reading my earlier post it seems I omitted some crucial information in one or two sentences. If you read them in isolation, I can see why you're disagreeing. So, I've added a few words below in bold. Notice I did have a couple time-based comments elsewhere in what I wrote... I feel that the SRV track you brought up falls squarely in what I was trying to convey. I find SRV's feel to be absolutely exceptional with tremendous emotion and purpose. He's absolutely not just bending up to pitch randomly. If you still disagree, well then we'll have to agree to disagree. No biggie!

Back to my covers. I laid down 4 this week! Doing them is definitely helping with the memorization issue that I previously posted about.

Zitat

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One important thing when bending is surely to nail the pitch of the target note. No question. BUT, we can't just bend to that note in any old way. We have to bend to that note musically. Sometimes we'll bend very quickly and sometimes we'll bend a bit slower. But, I don't think bending up to pitch super slowly and out of time thereby allowing all of the intermediate atonal microtones to be audible for too long is what we're going for when bending.

So, using the tuner to check that your target tones are right is a great idea. (Very soon you shouldn't need to do this anymore though.) But I also recommend this exercise be attempted using a metronome. Practice very fast bends where the tone to which we bend is in time and the tone from which we start is a grace note that doesn't get much time. Additionally, practice bends where the starting and ending tones each get an equivalent amount of time.

Perhaps there are instances in music where what I've written is just way off, but for me the slow out-of-time bends are just not pleasing to the ear at all. So if such instances are out there, my ears keep me from wanting to hear more...

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When you put it like that, I think we can agree to agree :).

Bending is fairly important. It's one of the things that makes the guitar such an expressive instrument. This song came out in 1990 I think? I remember my friend's mom had it on cassette. For me anyway, this was the final word in 20th century blues. After I heard this I was like, "Ok, time for the blues to move on and grow." And it has with guys like Matt Schofield who I absolutely love. Check him out if you haven't.

Anyway, this is how I practiced my bending back in the day. Still can't get it exact. This is a tour de force in the use of tone, vibrato, bending, melody, and speed. Tying it all together.

edit.

Now...while I did think Gary Moore's "Still Got The Blues" back in 1990 was the final statement on 20th century blues guitar, the guy who REALLY got the last word in was SRV. I saw this on PBS (Public Broadcasting here in the states for you non- Americans). I thought this guy was from another planet. My favorite track by him. Another tour de force in bending, speed, tone, and melody.

Wow! That Gary Moore track is just spectacular. The more you learn, the more you're able to appreciate the masters.

Yeah man, Gary Moore had total control. Here is another bending/vibrato master. I actually (GASP!) prefer the re-working of the vocal melody during the verses here. Total control, tone, melody, bending.

There is a famous Woody Allen quote that goes something like, "80% of success is just showing up."

Well, maybe we could say 80% of success on guitar is being able to hit and bend these notes correctly at the perfect time and with massive tone. Mr. Gilmour definitely does that here 100% of the time. Probably why he is so highly respected. Also, notice the RESTRAINT he shows.

uderoche, Gary Moore was a fantastic guitar player. Parisenne Walkways is an incredible track. The live versions of that track are fantastic. Gary Moore really makes the guitar sing with just bending and vibratoing one note. Ritchie Blackmore is another one too who is like that too.

Everything Blackmore does is golden in my book. I'm a huge Blackmore fan as well as Uli Roth. A friend of mine brought over this concert many years ago, Rainbow live in Munich, and I was floored. Have watched it many times. Love everything Blackmore does.

James Byrd. Bending and vibrato unmatched by a rock guitarist in the past 20 years. One of my all time favorite rock guitarists.

Still can't get over that Gary Moore track. I love the Comfortably Numb solo (interesting he uses the whammy bar so much for vibrato rather than the left-hand, what's up with that?), but Still Got The Blues hits me at a much deeper level.

Good point Cliff. Shawn Lane used the bar a lot for vibrato as well. Come to think of it, a lot of guys do! I've always been more fond of controlling it with only the hand but both obviously take years of practice.

Yeah, Gary Moore really fucking tears it up. I totally LOVE, in all the arts, when you see an artist had a vision and that vision was fully realized. That Gary Moore track = vision fully realized! It has all the elements you would look for...great pop hook, great guitar playing, amazing performance.

Both ways are useful. I use the tremelo arm if I using my guitar with the locking trem for very slight vibrato. I tend to do the side to side vibrato with my fingers(classical technique) for slow vibrato as I find it way better to slow vibrato(on a guitar without a tremelo unit).

Yeah, there's guys out there who utilize bending in a way that is totally unreal, and so musical. Very important technique, unique to guitar-like instruments...

Quote: uderoche wrote in post #47

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Good point Cliff. Shawn Lane used the bar a lot for vibrato as well. Come to think of it, a lot of guys do! I've always been more fond of controlling it with only the hand but both obviously take years of practice.

Yeah, Gary Moore really fucking tears it up. I totally LOVE, in all the arts, when you see an artist had a vision and that vision was fully realized. That Gary Moore track = vision fully realized! It has all the elements you would look for...great pop hook, great guitar playing, amazing performance.

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