How to Read a Pre-bend on Guitar Tabs

Video Transcript

"BRYAN BILLHIMER: Okay, in this step we're going to be talking about pre-bend. Okay, a pre-bend looks like this. We have a 15th fret pick on the B string. But in this case with a pre-bend, the arrow goes straight up. There's a "full" so a whole step bend. But a pre-bend, you pick the note after you bend the string. So, we're going to bend the string then pick the note. Okay. So pre-bend, we're going to bend the note first then pick it. So, the 15th fret B string and it said a full bend so we're going to make this 15th fret note sound like that. That's a whole step or a full step so that's the pitch we want. So we bend then pick. That's a pre-bend. Now, in conjunction with pre-bends, what you see most of the time is what's called a "ghost bend" and it'll be a pre-bend pick with a release. So, in this case, a ghost bend would sound like this. You bend the string first and then release it. So we bend, pick, release. That's called a ghost bend. And there's another ghost bend. That's so cool for adding little cool effects. So, a ghost bend is a pre-bend followed by a release."