Accurate bending is essential to creating amazing solos. How to practice bending is an interesting question, since it is not often addressed. Today I’m going to show you an approach to help you make your solos sound more professional by improving your bending skills.
How to practice bending approached on a single string.
I find great utility in practicing concepts on a single string. One reason is that linear nature of the single string allows for a simpler path to understanding. Another is that once you understand the concept on a single string, applying to other strings is simple.
This is why I approached how to practice bending using the single string approach. I’ve talked about the single string approach in many other lessons prior, and this makes up a key tenet of my approach to learning and teaching.
If you haven’t explored the idea of the single string approach, check out my lesson on it here.
In this lesson I go over the three most important bending distances that you need to master. These are the half step bend, whole step bend and minor third bend. If you gain mastery of these three you’ll be able to use this technique to make your solos sound killer!
Bending is one of the most important ways to make your playing sound more vocal, mimicking the sound of the human voice. You can take a simple melodic idea and imbue it with life by using bends, creating fluidity and emotion.
Check out this tasty solo.
One of my favorite guitar solos is a perfect example of this idea. Check out this solo on the song I’ll Stay by RH Factor. This guitarist kills it on this solo with super simple ideas, played in a melodic and vocalized style.
Listen to it here. I timestamped the youtube link to the beginning of the solo, but the entire song is worth a listen. It’s really an amazing track. Enjoy!
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