bending?

-Al-

When I bend a string up, my finger catches the the string next to to it, so if I bend the string down, I get a DING from pulling the other string.

I know its all practice, but any tips?

cheers

Karl Hungus

I had the same problem. Bend with your middle finger, and mute the other strings with your index. That should help.

-Al-

ah cool, thanks

-=al=-

ah come on al yer letting the other al's down..

Its alll to do with muting, either mute the other strings with the side of yer fretting hand or with the palm of ur picking hand

The funny thing is playing guitar well lead at least... is u spend more time muting unwanted notes than playing notes

BossArky

Karl Hungus wrote:

I had the same problem. Bend with your middle finger, and mute the other strings with your index. That should help.

Say for example that you are playing in the pentatonic with the root on the 12th fret, i.e. Em. Do you mean you use your middle finger to bend up the A on the G string? I would use my ring finger (one beside pinky). I don't want to rely on the naturally stronger fingers for bending (index and middle) or else it will get too comfy and the other strings will wither and fall off :eek: It also feels more economical in my opinion.

Karl Hungus

BossArky wrote:

Say for example that you are playing in the pentatonic with the root on the 12th fret, i.e. Em. Do you mean you use your middle finger to bend up the A on the G string? I would use my ring finger (one beside pinky). I don't want to rely on the naturally stronger fingers for bending (index and middle) or else it will get too comfy and the other strings will wither and fall off :eek: It also feels more economical in my opinion.

Sorry, I just gave the middle finger as an example. You can bend with other fingers, just as long as you're muting with the index.

Johnny Storm

-=al=- wrote:

.... u spend more time muting unwanted notes than playing notes

This is very true. I find I try to use any fingers on the fretting hand that are not actually fretting a note to damp unwanted sounds as well as the heel/palm of my fretting hand. You can also do it like Jimi and use the thumb of your enormous fretting hand to mute the bass strings. Maybe. Eric Johnson has a very good bit on muting on his instructional DVD (that the only bit I could really understand )

NeMiSiS

I bend with first middle and ring finger..at the same time. I 'Thrill' with first.

TK

steveland?

I tend to bend with my ring finger using my middle finger to get some sort of precesion while kind of resting my index finger on the fret before the one I'm bending on as a kind of anchor... if you know what I mean because I kind of don't...

Funny, I'd never thought of the actual physical positioning of my fingers while bending a note... it all sounds so complicated when you think about it...

John

steveland? wrote:

I tend to bend with my ring

*snigger*

Seriously though, I find if you bend the string down you have more control of the bend if you want to try and keep the bend to a specific semi-tone or whatever. Never need to mute strings I must say (not consciously anyway), if you bend with the tip of your finger you shouldn't be hitting the other strings by accident.

-=al=-

The fun part comes when u add vibrato to make those lovely bends that are ever so gracefull

georgelowden

select an easy place to begin / 2nd string a [10 frett ] up to b [12th frett]
+ add vibrato as the note dies out ..
try G string d {7th frett} up to e { 9th frett} .. bending is done with ALL fingures / blackmore style / the permutations are endless..... :cool: