The Most Fun You Can Have on the Guitar
When I first picked up the electric guitar, it seems that instinctively I started bending strings. After hearing the sounds you could get as you bend the string until it nearly breaks, I was hooked. This was crazy fun. From that day forward, string bending just never left my playing. And I love to listen to a great solo with soaring bends.
Think about bending masters like David Gilmour and BB King. Those guys can grab your soul with a single perfectly bent note. What a way to create some emotion in a solo.
These sounds are very unique to the guitar. I guess you could bend a string on a violin, but I bet it wouldn’t sound as cool as a guitar. Yeah, I’m pretty sure about that.
String bending, its kind of our thing.
Why have I never tried to improve my string bending?
I have no idea. I guess that if you play fast licks, you don’t really get an opportunity to hear that you are missing the note. Maybe I never heard how badly I was bending. Let’s just say that bending to the correct pitch was never really a focus for me. Maybe I would naturally get close to the right note, but close really isn’t good enough. Trust me. After working on this for some time, I can tell that my overall sound has improved drastically.
My String Bending Exercise
Over the last several months, I have been concentrating on bending to the right pitch. I try to avoid over bending and under bending, and really target a dead-on accurate bend.
Here’s a quick video explaining my string bending exercise. You’ll hear some perfect bends and some not-so-perfect bends. I am still working to get these down 100% of the time but this exercise has helped me come a long way in a relatively short amount of time.
I hope you get a lot out of it.
Cheers and Keep Bending!