How to Read Bending on Guitar Tab

Guitar tablature or "tabs" is a great way to read for many beginners. Although rhythm and some other elements are hard to read in tabs, readers can see just what a guitar player is doing in a song because the musical "staff" is the six strings of your guitar and each note is marked by its fret. One of the things you can read in tabs is string bending. Some guitar players use this technique a lot; it's where you bend a string either up or down, raising the pitch. Here's how to read string bends in tabs.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Look for the letter b (lowercase). This is the symbol for a string bend in tablature.

2. Check the number in front of the b. This is the fret you will be using. Put your finger on that string, on whatever fret number is written in the tabs.

3. Find a second number after the b. This is the pitch you will be bending to. To do this, you need to be able to hear note changes and identify a half step, whole step, etc. The majority of string bends go up a whole step, so you'll see things like: 5b7, 7b9, 9b11, etc. For a half step, it would be: 5b6, 8b9, etc. When you know how much difference there is between half steps and whole steps, you can bend according to the tabs. If in some rare cases nobody put a number after the b, you usually want to just bend up a whole step.

4. Reach the note change required by the tabs. You can mute that note or let it sustain as you play on, according to what sounds best.

5. Note reverse bends. This is just the opposite: a bend marked 9b7, 7b5, etc. means you are letting go of the string from its original bend and letting it go back to its original tone on the fret that your finger was previously on. Remember, you will only see reverse bends where you have already bent up, a reverse bend cannot exist on its own.