Welcome to video #6 of the Lead Guitar Quick-Start Series. In this lesson we’re going to learn
a technique that is very important for you to kind of kick up your self-expression on
a guitar and that is bending. We’re going to cover 2 basic types of bends in this lesson.
One is half-step bends and the other one is whole-step bends and let me just tell you
right now your fingers are probably going to be pretty sore after this, just like when
you were first starting to learn your basic chords, but don’t let that stop you. Keep
practicing through it and after a few weeks, your fingers will toughen up and bends will
get easier for you. Let’s get started with the half-step bend.
Come up here to the fifth fret of the G string and that’s a note we’re going to be working
with and we’re going to be basically using minor pentatonic scale, a G minor pentatonic
scale for this lesson. Third finger on the fifth fret right there and the basic idea
behind a half-step bend is to bend the string up to where that note that you’re bending
up to that is the exact same pitch that is one half-step higher or one fret higher.
So that's the note that we are shooting for as we bend up this fifth fret of the third string.
It's always good to double check yourself when you’re working on your bends. So do that right
now. Just put your third finger on the fifth fret and a kind of unwritten that you’re
going to want to do when you bend strings is to use the fingers that you have available
to you behind the finger that you’re bending with to help push up on the string. That just
makes it a lot easier on you. Put your second and first fingers right behind your third
finger there and use it to help push up on that string and a lot of times my thumb for
half-step bends it won’t really come over the fret board too much because half step
bends aren’t really that hard but sometimes you need a little extra leverage so your thumb
can kind of come help out to get some leverage over the fret board right there. When you
do this kind of stuff, you’re going to want to make sure that you double check the pitch
of your bends to make sure you’re shooting for that right note and the pitch is just
right on target. As far as the physical technique for the bend,
if you’ll notice I’m kind of just pivoting with my wrist there and my forearm is up
and you can see my forearm moving, right? It kinds of looks like this motion right here.
So do that over and over again until you get used to the physical action of bending and
until you get really good at matching at bent fifth fret up to the same pitch as the sixth fret
So half-step bends aren’t that hard on your
fingers but whole-step bends are a bit of another story. They’re a little bit tougher
on your fingers. So to do this, to work on our whole-step bends, let’s go to the sixth
fret of the B string right here with your pinky and when you bend this note up,
a whole-step bend you’re going to want to be shooting for that note that’s two frets away or a
whole-step away, so that’s the note we’re going to be shooting for, the pitch we’re
going to be shooting for, but our pinky’s going to be back here on the sixth fret and
all the other fingers can come behind your pinky and help push up on that since we have
to push up even more for this whole-step bend. Do that and push that up just over and over
and double check yourself. And you’ll see my thumb is way over the fret board here.
For bends like this, I found that that really helps to get some leverage and you turn to
Eric Clapton when you do this, which is awesome, right?
This maybe a little bit more difficult for you at first if your fingers aren’t strong
enough or quite used to bending, but over time you’ll get better at that. So now that
you have the concept of what a half-step and a whole-step bend is, let’s apply them to
a few little simple licks. This first lick is just using the minor pentatonic scale and
a half step bend. Basically what we’re doing, we’re going to go back to the fifth fret
of the G string where we learned how to do a half step-bend. Put your third finger on
there, put your first and second fingers to help bend that up a half step, get it back
down and then come back here to the third fret with your first finger, pick that note
and then end the lick on this G root note right here with your third finger on the D string.
So that whole lick really slowly, half-step bend
And you're going to want to make sure you double check your pitch too to make sure it’s right on.
Now for a whole-step bend, let’s go back to the fret where we learned our whole-step
bend on, the sixth fret of the B string with your pinky. Get all your fingers on there
to help push up on this string for our whole-step bend, push it up, let it back down, then
come back down here to the third fret of that B string with your index finger and then walk
down the scale the notes on the G string, so third finger fifth fret, first finger third
fret and then end on the root note here on the fifth fret of the D string. So really slowly.
So you’re going to want to make sure that you double check your pitch to the
eighth fret. Up here on the B string is where you’re going to be shooting for with that whole-step bend.
So it’s important that you experiment for
yourself using the scales that you already know. It’s also important that you bend
up to notes that are actually in the scale so the notes sound good, right? So let me give
you some tips for using the minor pentatonic scale as far as bending up. On the high E
string, if you’re playing with your pinky, the highest note on that string, you can bend
that up a whole-step. Same thing on the next string over, if you’re playing the highest
note with your pinky, on that string you can bend that up a whole-step. Go over here to
the highest note of the G string, you can bend that up a half-step. That’s actually
a note in the blues scale but it still sounds good, so you can use that. Next string over,
the D string, with your third finger here on the fifth fret you can bend that note up
a whole-step and when I bend that, when I get to the lower strings, I generally pull
down on the strings instead of pushing up. The next string over the A string, you can
play the fifth fret and just bend that up a half-step and that note isn’t in the scale.
It’s in a regular minor scale but it still sounds good for this context. And the last
string, the sixth string, you can bend up a whole-step too.
Pull up the minor jam track, the one where you use when you’re learning the minor pentatonic
scale and just work in your bends, experiment around with them, get your fingers in shape
and see what sounds good.
So that’s just a really simple example of how you can apply some bends to the minor pentatonic scale. And you know, don’t be discouraged if you can't
do this right away. It’s going to take some time to build up your strength and your ability
to match the pitch of your bends. So just work on it, enjoy the process of learning how to
bend. Thanks for watching this video and in the next lesson we’re going to add another
really cool technique to your library that will kick your self-expression up even another
notch with your lead guitar skills and that’s vibrato. If you have any questions about bending,
leave them below and I’ll get back to you or you can just email me nate@guitarsystem.com.
See you.