Sliding & Bending?

[Stuartw]

Saw a link to this post earlier today and have been trying to figure out which fingers do what!

So taking the notes on the B string, if you slide with your 1st finger from 5 to 8 the wrong fingers are in place to bend and then slide to 10. Or is that bend on 8 to make it sound like 10? Any help appreciated!

[stitch]

Use your ring finger to slide 5/8 and bend then index back to 5

[DavidP]

@Stuartw

Or is that bend on 8 to make it sound like 10?

@Stuartw that’s it Stuart. When practicing that you can slide up with the ring finger from 5 to 8 and then slide up to 10 to hear the note fretted. Then repeat 5 to 8 and bend up to the note. This helps you to train the ear to hear what the note you are bending to sounds like.

[Richard_close2u]

Stuart, I have just migrated and updated that topic from the old forum to here:

Bend that B string

Here’s a tip you may find useful if you have just started on string bending and are struggling to make your bends sound right. I wrote this after I had just finished a lesson with a student. I had started him on the A minor pentatonic scale and I wanted him to get the feel for a bit of string bending. It is common to struggle with this at first … in terms of technique and in terms of ‘hearing’ the note to bend to. I showed him to slide to the note first, then play the bend, th…

[Stuartw]

@stitch

Use your ring finger to slide 5/8 and bend then index back to 5

Thanks but what’s confused me is that with this pentatonic scale the B/5 is fretted with the index finger, not ring. I’m guessing that this exercise is in isolation to the scale.

[Stuartw]

@DavidP

When practicing that you can slide up with the ring finger from 5 to 8 and then slide up to 10 to hear the note fretted. Then repeat 5 to 8 and bend up to the note. This helps you to train the ear to hear what the note you are bending to sounds like.

Thanks. I have been doing this exercise for bending but not 100% sure that the fretted note (at 10 in this case) sounds like the bent note on 8. The reason being as the string is being bent it is making a elongated sound (hard to describe) before it gets to the top of the bend.

[Stuartw]

@Richard_close2u

Stuart, I have just migrated and updated that topic from the old forum to here:

Thanks for that. Another one to keep and work through!

[DavidP]

@Stuartw

The reason being as the string is being bent it is making a elongated sound

Yup, you need to be able to hold the bend at the point where the pitch of the note has increased a full tone (in this case, sometimes a semi-tone). And to do that requires one to develop the bending technqiue, ie rotating the hand rather than pushing with the fingers, otherwise it can be really challenging to hold the bend.

When starting off you may find it is helpful to de-tune your guitar by a semi-tone, which takes some of the tension off the strings which makes the bending easier.

Lighter guage strings also helps, 9s rather than 10s.

[stitch]

@Stuartw

what’s confused me is that with this pentatonic scale the B/5 is fretted with the index finger,

When you play licks you sometime have to throw the rules out the window. If you look at the starting note of the exercise you can start it with any finger. The proper way to slide into a note is with the finger you’re going to bend with. Which in this case would be the Ring finger not the index. If you notice the 6(A#) in the tab on the e string isn’t in the Minor pentatonic scale either, so another rule broken.