String Bending

String bending is a guitar technique that used usually by lead guitarists to change the pitch of a note. This guitar technique can be widely applied to a wide range of guitar styles and is most commonly found in rock music. The main reason why string bending is so widely used is because this technique gives guitar playing a more personalized and harmonic quality. Different individuals can use this guitar technique to create different textures of sounds and expressive dimensions.

Learning how to bend strings effectively is something that many guitarists find difficult. This guitar lesson will give a proper guide to help you in string bending. Let's start.....

String bending can be achieved by fretting a string and bending it either up (For 1st, 2nd and 3rd strings) or pulling it downwards (For 4th, 5th and 6th strings). Common sense would tell you that if you were to bend the 1st string downwards, the string would be pulled off the fretboard and vice versa for the 6th string. However, this is JUST a guideline. If you simply need to bend the 1st string a little and the resultant action wouldn’t make the string go off the fretboard, feel free to do pull the 1st string in a downward motion.

Standard Bend

The most common type of string bending is standard bends of either a semi or whole tone. In string bending, one of the most important things to bear in mind is the accuracy of the targeted note for bending. The easiest way to practice this is to play the pitch of the note that you are intending to bend to before performing string bending. This will help you stay in tune as the pitch is still fresh in your mind and slowly accustom your ears to bending to the correct pitch.

Guitar Technique - Standard Bend

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Pre Bend

Pre-bending simply means you fret and fully bent the note before picking the string. After the string is picked, release the string back to its original position. Instead of hearing the pitch rise, the pitch will start at its highest point and fall to the original note.

How to bend strings - Pre bend

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Smear Bend

Smear bends (aka small bends) is produced when the string is bended very slightly (approximately quarter note). This bend is very important in blues music as it creates a slightly “off” note which gives an authentic blues flavor.

Guitar Technique - Smear Bend

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Unison Bend

Unison bends is done by playing 2 different notes at the same time. While maintaining the pitch of one note, a bend is perform on the 2nd note to reach the same pitch as the 1st note. You can typically hear unison bends in Santana’s or Hendrix’s guitar playing which really adds flavor to their guitar playing.

Guitar Techniques - Unison Bend

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Tips for String Bending

- Use the strength of more fingers to bend strings instead of using just one finger. For example, use the

second and/or third finger behind the fourth finger when performing a bend. Doing this will reinforce

and aid in bending the string with more control.

- Grip the neck of the guitar with your thumb. This posture will simplify string bending to a simple

contraction of hand muscles.

Proper String Bending Technique Improper String Bending Technique

Proper posture Improper posture

- Use a chromatic tuner to check if you have bended the note to the correct pitch.

- Different gauges of strings can affect string bending. Light gauges are easier to bend and give a

“wilder” tone (heavy rock music). On the other hand, thicker gauges are harder to bend but can give

a richer and warmer tone. Thicker strings can also be tuned down and not flop around like lighter

gauge strings.

- Make sure that there is no unwanted noise from other strings (common mistake occurs when the

guitarist unwittingly pull of adjacent strings when releasing a bend). You can avoid this problem by

muting strings with your picking hand or using different areas of the fingertip to fret the bended note

to prevent accidental noise from other strings.

- Experiment with different bends and listen to how each of them gives different sound effects.

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String Bending Exercise 1

String Bending Exercise 1

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Listen to the pitch of the target note before you bend the note to the target note. This exercise will train your ears to identify the correct pitch when a note is bent.

String Bending Exercise 2

String Bending Exercise 2

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Nothing beats an exercise with a jam track to play along. Start with by learning this short solo before you inject some of your own creative ideas into the solo.

Hope you had enjoyed this guitar lesson on string bending. Now that you know how to bend strings, make sure you use this guitar technique in your playing. Have fun bending cold hard steel !