How to Play a Bend on Your Guitar

How to Play a Bend on Your Guitar

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Guitar

1. See Hand diagram before performing exercise.
2. Firmly plant two of your fingers down on the fretboard (below, I have used my #1 & #3 fingers, on the 8th and 10th frets of the B-string. The 10th fret is the note being bent. I have placed one finger on the 8th fret for reinforcement. This reduces the likelihood that the string will slip out from underneath my fingers, and makes the string easier to bend).
3. Pluck the B string.
4. Bend the string upwards, until you have reached the desired pitch.(upward or downward bends will result in the same increase of pitch. However, the reason that upward and downward bends have different texture is because picking in the same direction of the bend, or in the opposite direction of the bend will result in a slightly different sound. For now, I would recommend bending upwards and picking downwards.)

Tips & Warnings

• A bend can be performed with one finger, but I would recommend using two. I always use two fingers to perform a bend, unless my other fingers are busy doing something else.