Bending Strings

I was prepared to write a whole blog about string bending, but Nate Richards from Richards Guitar Studio beat me to it with an awesome video, so I’ll let him explain it to you.

One tip I do want to shed light on that Nate goes into is how to figure out where to stop the bend.  In the example below, you’ll see the common notation for bending a string up a full step.  Next to it, you see I went from the 7th fret to the 9th fret.  That’s a whole step.  The next part is the bend again, but the 9 in parenthesis, (9), signifies that you will be bending the string from the D on the G string up to make the sound of the E.

I like to practice string bending by starting out on the third fret of the high E string, tuning my ear by playing the note on the next fret that I want to bend up to, then bend up to that note.  I repeat this process on every marked fret (5, 7, 9, 12), then move on to the rest of the strings and do the same.  NOTE: When you are bending the low E, A, and D, you want to pull down instead of bend up.

I do want to touch on something Nate didn’t.  I’m sure many of you have heard what sounds like two guitars playing the same note, only one is playing the note and the other sounds like it’s bending up to it.  This is called unison bending and is heard primarily in classic blues music, but can be heard in much of the modern rock and country.

How a unison bend is played is exactly the way I explained it…you strike both notes at the same time, but you bend the lower one up to the same tone as the higher note.  Make sure you get high enough without going too high.  Practice by playing the higher note first, then play the lower note as you bend up to the higher.  Train your ears to hear the tone.  A unison bend looks like this:

When playing unison bends on the B and high E, remember that you either have to move up three frets instead of two as in the illustration, or you would have to bend it one and a half times as high.  Mastering this technique will give your string bending a more fuller sound.

Simple 12 Bar Blues

Some people feel learning the guitar is difficult, especially to play the blues.  To many, their surprise is that it’s easier than they think.  The best way to start is to learn what’s called the twelve bar blues pattern.

Below is the tablature for a simple twelve bar blues pattern.  Although similar patterns can be played with one finger, this pattern gets your fingers stretching across the fretboard.

You can practice this as a simple, one-verse song, or play it several times as a longer song with a few verses.