The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hey all,

    Sorry if this is a stupid question but is bending strings not a thing on archtops? I heard someone mention that bending on an archtop will immediately throw off the intonation and shift the bridge out of its proper position.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Some folks never got the memo.

    String bending on an archtop?-7ff146a1-36a3-4ddd-97eb-3e81cb888ea1-jpeg

  4. #3

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  5. #4

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    It's not considered a part of the tradition I would suppose because the origins of the language came from a hardware that used heavier gauge strings for power, projection and availability. The language was slower to evolve because the icons were part of that sound and it evolved through those limitations.
    It's certainly not a sound forbidden to jazz as a genre, vocalists build their individual identities from the nuances of bent notes, as do horn players (Ben Webster's vibrato and phrasing is instantly distinguishable from Coleman Hawkins) but guitarists are more enamoured of the niche that the piano inhabited, so bending wasn't an assimilated kinesthetic skill, not so much.
    Jim Hall broke that tradition, Django certainly bent, Frisell has that in his vocabulary and John McLaughlin played an archtop and used microtones as much as a straight note.
    It's out there but if your listening is largely traditional bebop and its modern proponents, you're not going to hear it much, even still.
    It goes hand in hand with the guitar, gauge of string, desired overall sound and era genre for the individual to establish their own sound. There're certainly many traditions to embrace as you find your expressive style. Listen, love, learn and have the courage to synthesize your own approach. Bending is a sound that can be extremely expressive and in many circles, it's new unbroken ground.
    Go for it!

  6. #5

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    Seriously, I don’t think it matters. I can bend the top 2 strings ok on my 175 with no side-effects, and I’m using .012s. If you used .010 or .009 it would be easy.

    As you can see, BB and T-Bone could do it!

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by moejo313
    Hey all,

    Sorry if this is a stupid question but is bending strings not a thing on archtops? I heard someone mention that bending on an archtop will immediately throw off the intonation and shift the bridge out of its proper position.
    i bend on my archtop , no intonation
    or bridge problems

  8. #7

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    Yes I think the pressure of the strings on the bridge is so great, it’s not going to move easily. And bending the string only increases the pressure.

  9. #8

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    Bending on a classical guitar is very difficult....maybe because the fingerboard is flat.
    Having thin strings on arch-top bending is possible.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by kris
    Bending on a classical guitar is very difficult....maybe because the fingerboard is flat.
    Having thin strings on arch-top bending is possible.
    yeah there’s also something about nylon strings, they just don’t respond to bending somehow (the pitch doesn’t change much).

  11. #10
    Yup, that's my experience with nylons as well, maybe half a step up and that's a wrap! I appreciate all the feedback, you guys are awesome

  12. #11

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    And of course there's this guy. A classic carve top no less. You're good to go! :-)
    Attached Images Attached Images String bending on an archtop?-nugent1-jpg String bending on an archtop?-nugent3-jpg 

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by moejo313
    Yup, that's my experience with nylons as well, maybe half a step up and that's a wrap!
    Explains why Segovia’s career as a rock guitarist never really took off.

    String bending on an archtop?-5183b334-0a99-4e1e-9aaf-dcfdbc7b7ea2-jpeg

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    yeah there’s also something about nylon strings, they just don’t respond to bending somehow (the pitch doesn’t change much).
    Here's a showcase of various micro-bends on nylon strings, leading up to a couple of impressively big ones at about the 1:45 mark:


  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by moejo313
    Hey all,

    Sorry if this is a stupid question but is bending strings not a thing on archtops? I heard someone mention that bending on an archtop will immediately throw off the intonation and shift the bridge out of its proper position.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Explains why Segovia’s career as a rock guitarist never really took off.

    String bending on an archtop?-5183b334-0a99-4e1e-9aaf-dcfdbc7b7ea2-jpeg
    I think it more likely it was his failure to properly bridge channels I and II on those Plexis. Rookie mistake. Big points for the coil-cord, though!

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by citizenk74
    I think it more likely it was his failure to properly bridge channels I and II on those Plexis. Rookie mistake. Big points for the coil-cord, though!
    Maybe it was a question of professional courtesy, as evidently he was borrowing another fellow's rig:

  18. #17

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    Charlie Christian used bends, so it's part of the tradition. Not as much as in rock, but it's there. Bending is somewhat easier on a guitar with a stop tailpiece, because the total string length is shorter, but it's certainly possible. Someone who says the bridge will move when strings are bent is someone who is clueless. Cluelessness is an all too common condition, but it's curable, if a cure is desired.

  19. #18

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    Absolutely not true; I've heard jazz guitarists bend, maybe not as much as rock guitarists but a reasonable amount, especially during solos or written parts. I mean, the influence of the blues is in both genres in many different ways.

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
    It's not considered a part of the tradition I would suppose because the origins of the language came from a hardware that used heavier gauge strings for power, projection and availability. The language was slower to evolve because the icons were part of that sound and it evolved through those limitations.
    It's certainly not a sound forbidden to jazz as a genre, vocalists build their individual identities from the nuances of bent notes, as do horn players (Ben Webster's vibrato and phrasing is instantly distinguishable from Coleman Hawkins) but guitarists are more enamoured of the niche that the piano inhabited, so bending wasn't an assimilated kinesthetic skill, not so much.
    Jim Hall broke that tradition, Django certainly bent, Frisell has that in his vocabulary and John McLaughlin played an archtop and used microtones as much as a straight note.
    It's out there but if your listening is largely traditional bebop and its modern proponents, you're not going to hear it much, even still.
    It goes hand in hand with the guitar, gauge of string, desired overall sound and era genre for the individual to establish their own sound. There're certainly many traditions to embrace as you find your expressive style. Listen, love, learn and have the courage to synthesize your own approach. Bending is a sound that can be extremely expressive and in many circles, it's new unbroken ground.
    Go for it!
    it’s a bebop thing

    plenty of jazz guitarists bent notes before the war. Teddy Bunn, Eddie Lang and Lonnie johnson are obvious examples, crazy setups notwithstanding, and then as you say, Django who played fairly light Argentine strings (.10 top, but higher tension due the instrument and construction of the strings)

    But this was part and parcel of the era… Horn players like Cootie Williams were well known for the sonic nature of their solos, including use of wah wah and other highly vocal effects. Horn players would use a dazzling array of growls, slides and even slap tongue vaudeville effects and the blues was everywhere. While players like Coleman Hawkins favoured linear expressions of harmony, not everyone did and the landscape was pretty diverse, something that Ellington’s band encapsulated….

    This started to shift in the mid to late 30s with Lester Young and, notably with Charlie Christian. The aesthetic began to morph into bebop. And then Bird emerged.

    In many ways I actually see this as reflecting the ascendency of the modernist aesthetic in the mid 20th century. If you look throughout music wide expressive vibrato and portamento etc feel out of favour, with clean, clear articulation being favoured.

    You see this in jazz, but you also see it performances of Bach for instance, kicking off the early music movement, and in contemporary classical performances. (Schoenberg iirc commented that he preferred less immediate vibrato in string playing and a terminal vibrato - which is exactly how Parker used vibrato.) It’s interesting that Stravinsky was specifically a fan of Bird and Charlie Christian. It’s easy to hear how their aesthetics aligned.

    But, on the flip side, as Cootie put it - everyone started to sound the same, which is to say, like Parker. When you listen more to pre bop jazz it’s easy to see why he might have said that. The bop era was the Permian mass extinction of jazz, a massive evolutionary bottleneck. And I say that as someone who likes bop haha.

    rock and non western music influences widened the tonal pallete again. I honestly think Miles chose McLaughlin because he didn’t sound like a traditional bop guitarist. He’d already recorded with George Benson and didn’t carry on with it. Otoh Miles himself would play his horn through wahwah and all the idiot jazz critics would freak out as if horn players hadn’t invented the effect.

  21. #20

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    Otoh given this



    maybe we’ll see less bending in rock guitar haha

    to be honest I find polyphia’s approach a bit wearing, but it has a lot of influence on young players. It’s not for me anyway. I like the idea of it though.

    If you can’t be arsed to read my long answer, basically it’s all fashion, and a lot of jazz players remain true to the fashions of the 50s while most rock guitarists remain true to the fashions of the 70s or 80s depending on preference. If you are young enough you can be a 2020’s fashion victim and play wall to wall neo soul licks or whatever it is the kids like.

    There are other ways to play though.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by raymoan
    Here's a showcase of various micro-bends on nylon strings, leading up to a couple of impressively big ones at about the 1:45 mark
    On the wound strings, which tend to be a bit less elastic and thus change more in pitch when you pull them.

    (Interestingly, "classical vibrato" is achieved by pulling the string along instead of across it's length, and they do respond to that...)

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    it’s a bebop thing - plenty of jazz guitarists bent notes before the war.
    ...and after! Tal, Jim Hall, Howard Roberts, Herb Ellis and a host of other greats bent more than a few notes during their careers. Heavy strings weren't heavy back then, and only the blues guys needed banjo strings to bend even their 1st and 2nd strings. I had "normal" gauge flats on my 345 in 1960 and on my 175 from the day I got it in '61. When Guild came out with lighter flats (EA610s), I tried a set, loved them, and switched to them until they wre discontinued years later. Those first lighter EA610s were 13-58, with the later introduction of an 11-53 set they called EA610L when the 13s became EA610M. Back then, I only had one guitar for all gigs.

    Our heroes bent them all without hesitation, so I did too. Nobody ever told me they were too heavy to bend, so I didn't know any better