Bending

[jazzloverfat]

I was scrolling through Advancing Guitarist and this caught my eye:


How does one bend down a note, isn't that physically impossible?

Thanks!

[MinToyTot]

Looks to me like it's referring to pre-bends

[pamosmusic]

Yea probably pre-bends. So bend up to C before articulating the note, then release it to let it back to the B.

Classical vibrato -- right to left -- can lower the pitch as you "push" toward the bridge and slacken the string, but that's going to be slight. You'd break the string before you got a half step. Suitable for vibrato but not for an actual slur.

[jazzloverfat]

Classical vibrato -- right to left -- can lower the pitch as you "push" toward the bridge and slacken the string, but that's going to be slight. You'd break the string before you got a half step. Suitable for vibrato but not for an actual slur.

Thank you to both of you.
I get the pre-bends... it just never crossed my mind when i saw this

The other suggestion, the classical vibrato technique, i'm not sure I tried it before; when i learnt my basics on classical guitar i only used movement of the wrist for vibrato sound, without thinking much about what my finger actually does.
Thinking about it, the horizontal movement / stretching, would be easier on a fretless instrument, wouldn't it, since there's no frets to get in the way?

[pamosmusic]

Thank you to both of you.
I get the pre-bends... it just never crossed my mind when i saw this

The other suggestion, the classical vibrato technique, i'm not sure I tried it before; when i learnt my basics on classical guitar i only used movement of the wrist for vibrato sound, without thinking much about what my finger actually does.
Thinking about it, the horizontal movement / stretching, would be easier on a fretless instrument, wouldn't it, since there's no frets to get in the way?

It's a different thing. You're not crossing the fret, you're literally pushing the string toward the bridge to slacken it -- that lowers the pitch. You pull back toward the headstock and that raises the pitch. Vibrato on a fretless instrument is rotation of the finger tip so it depresses the string in a slightly different place in either direction.

If you're going up and down like a lot of electric guitarists learn, then you're tightening the string, so it raises the pitch either way.

[rpjazzguitar]

I recall an article in GP years ago about using that technique to make chords ring more sweetly by counteracting the effect of equal temperament.

[Christian Miller]

I mean equal temperament would be nice lol. What I have on my guitars is not that.

But then that's why cats get the bendy frets?

[pauln]

When the ear hears a bend up within a musical context, it instantly predicts the target pitch (the nominal "end" of the "proper full bend"). The ear also hears the rate of pitch ascent almost instantly.
Because of those two things, you don't have to bend all the way to the target pitch if you "imply" the target with the right rate of pitch ascent.
Try playing something with a bend and gradually reduce the amount of the bend's pitch ascent. When it begins to sound like it's not indicating the target, increase the speed of ascent until it does. Then repeat with lesser bends that rise faster.
You will amaze yourself how little bending fast (well less than quarter steps) is needed to sound like the bend targets are being met.

[Lockjaw Davis]

So advancing guitarist is a general guitar book, right? Not jazz specific? That's a pretty silly piece of advice to say never bend more than a half step. Whole step bends are pretty standard in guitar playing. Even more than that are used sometimes.

[pamosmusic]

So advancing guitarist is a general guitar book, right? Not jazz specific? That's a pretty silly piece of advice to say never bend more than a half step. Whole step bends are pretty standard in guitar playing. Even more than that are used sometimes.

You are looking at two sentences from a hundred page book.

It's full of weird little challenges and games to make you a better, more versatile guitarist. Which is to say that he doesn't mean "never bend more than a half step." He means, try playing a solo but "don't use bends larger than a half-step."

The most commonly cited section of this book is the "unitar" section where he advocates playing on single strings -- he of course doesn't intend you to only play on single strings. It's an exercise meant to push you into something you're not accustomed to doing.

[Lockjaw Davis]

I see.

[jazzloverfat]

Yeah, that's the intro section, the basics, and it's only one exercise. In this part the focus is more on learning the notes up the neck string by string focusing only on the naturals.

And this leads me to another question - would you take this approach with a beginner? Have them learn all the notes 1 string at a time as opposed to say the first 3 or 5 frets on all strings?

[grahambop]

It’s worth noting the full context of this - this is the section where he is suggesting improvising in each of the 7 modes of C major in turn, on one string at a time, to learn how each mode sounds and where to find all the notes instantly. That is why he is restricting you to naturals only. (Playing on one string is also an approach advocated by Jim Hall.)

It does sound a bit weird, but if you try it, it is actually quite helpful, it forces you to identify the correct notes by ear rather rather than relying on ‘learned patterns’, which tends to happen when playing in position across the strings.

[CliffR]

Joe Satriani also advocated the one-string-at-a-time approach. Again, as an exercise, not something you'd employ in anger.

[grahambop]

I think John Abercrombie mentions it in a video somewhere too (he probably got it from Mick Goodrick when he went to Berklee).

[pamosmusic]

It’s such a useful exercise. Going back to that seeing shapes and patterns thread, it’s a really simple thing that turns the way you navigate a guitar completely on its head. Kind of genius from a pedagogical standpoint.

[jazzloverfat]

I picked up this book in the hope that it would help me learn how to improvise and I only skimmed over part 1 and went straight into Triads. But after reading your comments and re-reading the first few pages properly this time, I will try these exercises.

My question still stands though, would you start a complete beginner with this approach of 1 string at a time? And how would this work with learning how to read music?

[pamosmusic]

I picked up this book in the hope that it would help me learn how to improvise and I only skimmed over part 1 and went straight into Triads. But after reading your comments and re-reading the first few pages properly this time, I will try these exercises.

My question still stands though, would you start a complete beginner with this approach of 1 string at a time? And how would this work with learning how to read music?

definitely not.

This book is not a method book. It’s a series of really useful little tricks and perspectives and stuff that are designed to help you be more creative or help you out of a rut when you’ve already got some stuff under your fingers