Beginner Guitar Lesson 12 - The Bend

Today we’re going to look at one of the most powerful and useful guitar techniques: the bend!

The bend is a very unique and versatile tool for you to use. It’s unique because not many other instruments can bend notes, let alone do it with such ease. Well, at least it does eventually get easy once you get the hang of it!

You’ll need to dedicate a lot of time and practice into mastering the bend because it takes a lot of timing and coordination to execute it correctly. But it does become super easy once you get the hand of it. It is also one of the more impressive guitar techniques, especially for electric guitarists.

Basic Bend Represented by the ‘b’ symbol, the bend is where you pick a note and push the strings sideways to bend it. <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> e----------------------------- B----------------------------- G—5b----7b------------------- D--------------3b----4b------- A----------------------------- E-----------------------------

Bend and Release Represented by the symbol ‘r’, bend and release is just like the basic bend, but there is a number after it which shows you where you should be releasing from. e----------------------------- B----------------------------- G----------------------------- D—-4r5---4r5---4r5---3r5------ A----------------------------- E-----------------------------

Here’s a real life example. I found this guitar tab of  the song, “I’ll Be There for You” (a.k.a Friends theme music) by the Rembrants:

Intro e--------------------------------------------- B--------------------------------------------- G-----5r6—-5r6--4--2--0--0--2--4--2----------- played 4 times D--------------------------------------------- A--0-(let ring)------------------------------- Bass and drums E--------------------------------------------- in on 3rd time

 

Note: A tablature on the web is an imitation transcribed by another guitarist out there, not the official tablature. You can buy the official 100% accurate tablatures of most popular guitar songs from sheetmusic.com or amazon.com. Also please support these artists by purchasing their full songs either from your cd store, or online at places like iTunes or Amazon.

Here is a clip of the first 5 seconds of this riff, see if you can hear the bends:

Play button goes here – rembrants riff.wav

{wav}rembrantsriff{/wav} 

Can you hear the bends in there? The single most vital part of bending is ensuring that you bend to the precise pitch. Otherwise it will sound terrible. The most difficult part of bending is actually pushing the string and fretting it with your finger. You’ll probably find that it is easiest to fret with your ring finger, but your other fingers can be used too. As always, practice makes perfect!

For your homework, practice the riff from The Rembrants' song above. If you have an electric guitar, great! If you don’t, don’t worry, this is just a practice exercise and can still be done with an acoustic guitar.

Also, don’t be too concerned if it doesn’t sound precisely like the original version as there are other elements involved, like tuning (they tune their guitars slightly differently than standard tuning). Keep practicing the bend. It’s an essential element of guitar playing and will impress a lot of people when you master it!