Bend it Like Beck

One of the things I love to do most when playing electric guitar is string bending. When you bend the string you alter its pitch in subtle ways that aren't possible on most other instruments. It is one of the things that make the electric guitar a uniquely expressive instrument. Guitarists like Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, B.B. King,and Jimi Hendrix can often be identified in a note or two simply by the style of their string bending. In a way, their vibrato is their signature.

To perform a basic bend you pluck a string and then bend it up or down to make the pitch go higher (ascending bend). You can do the opposite as well: bend the string first, then pluck it and let the string return to its normal position. This will result in a pitch that descends (reverse or descending bend). You can create a warbling sound, called vibrato, by rapidly moving the string up and down. There are many other types of bends to learn and add to your expressive vocabulary. These include oblique bends, microtonal bends, parallel double stop bends, 1/4 bends, 1/2 bends, whole bends, and more.

When learning to bend strings, a few tips will help you improve more quickly. In order to reduce friction, try to place your finger on the string so accurately that you can't feel the fretboard underneath it. Try to maintain this placement as you bend the string. As you bend do not increase finger pressure into the fretboard. If you do this you are increasing friction against the fretboard and the string will be much more difficult to bend. Practice changing the pitch so that it sounds like the pitch that is one fret higher than you are fretting (1/2 step bend). Also practice bending the string so that it sounds like the pitch two frets higher than you are fretting (whole step bend).

I recommend listening to "Cause We've Ended" as Lovers by Jeff Beck, and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from The Beatles' White Album, which features Eric Clapton on lead guitar. Pay particular attention to Jeff Beck's descending bends with volume swells in "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" and Eric Clapton's bends with wide slow vibrato in "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

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