when to bend

great first post question.
welcome to this great forum.
bends, for me, personalize a blues lick. how long I hold a note, how strong of a bend, when to hammer on or pull off all create interest and feel in a lick.
since you know your scale try bending the note you just played to the next interval
and feel how it sounds.
for me, a bend is like a lament. where do you want to cry?

if there are set rules for this I do not want to know them.

Dogbite said it pretty well. Bends, like slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs, and vibrato add a little "spice" to your solo. You throw them in there when the mood hits you. :D

There are absolutely no rules at all to this, although many solos start with a bend.

The best thing to do is listen to many lead guitarists and listen to how they use bends. A great place to start is Stevie Ray Vaughan. Listen how he makes his guitar talk with bends, slides, hammer-ons, etc.... He could do it all. 8)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDBIbJKjAZQ

thanks guys, i geuss maybe i just cant feel it enough or something. ill keep trying

thanks guys, i geuss maybe i just cant feel it enough or something. ill keep trying

the guitar is a voice singing.
how would you sing the phrase you are playing so it will have feeling.
simple and not.
that is why I keep playing. someday my guitar will sing what I hear in my head.

Again Dogbite is correct. Think of your guitar as your voice. It is easy to tell when someone is excited or sad just by the way they talk. Guitar is the same. Try to express emotion with the guitar. How would you sound sad?? Maybe playing very slow with slow bends, maybe in the bass. How would you sound happy?? Maybe playing fast and carefree higher up.

Many great players like Jimi Hendrix would actually sing while they played and try to imitate their own voice on the guitar. It is very difficult to get this voice-like sound but it will make you into a great player.

But don't stress over it. Always have fun when you play.

Edit- I've always enjoyed this song because it is especially sad and mournful, In the Arms of Sleep by the Smashing Pumpkins. Has nothing to do with bending strings per se, but listen to the sad slide guitar played in the background by James Iha. He even makes some birdlike sounds that makes me think of walking on a lonely beach. But this is the best thing you can do on guitar or any instrument, express feelings and emotion.

Disregard the video, it is terrible. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFLnOJcGRzk

When you play da blues den yah sup'osd to bend, boy !

...everytime I try to put a bend somewhere in a solo it dosent sound right.

One thing you might want to check is the accuracy of your bends. They may not sound correct if you are not bending to the correct pitch. For the bend to sound correct, your bends need to be precise, either 1/2, whole, 1.5 and 2 steps.

That means, when you bend at a fret, say fret 5 for instance, a 1/2 step bend should sound exactly like as if you played the 6th fret on the same string. A whole step bend should sound like fret 7, 1.5 like fret 8 and a 2 step bend should sound like fret 9. If you are anywhere in between, it may not sound good at all.

To check the accuracy of your bends, play a 1/2 step bend on a fret, then immediately play the next fret and see if it sounds the same to you. If not, adjust how much you bend, either less or more.

I hope this helps.

Dave

try this: next time you want to play the note play it by bending the previous note of the scale up to it. so if you play in Am penta and you want to play a E, play the D instead and bend it up. bending is just another way approach a note. First you make a melody, then you think of how to play it. In any case, make sure the END of the bend sounds good, it doesnt particularly matter where you start it.

I think dogbite hit the nail on the head with the likeness of a guitar solo to singing. Where a singer would "waver" his voice, perhaps put a dab of vibrato, or on a sustained note which tails off, a little bend up and down.

Experimentation is the key in my opinion! I am inventing my own version of the solo from The Beatles' Something at the moment. It'll be what I feel sounds right . . . and to be honest I don't give a monkeys what anyone else thinks, afterall, music is a personal thing. :D