Bend and Vibrato

i'll get out a tuner and do it again.

g string is in tune. it's more pronounced on the wound strings. your fingers get a grip on the windings. g string 9th fret e is in tune. push forward and it goes 20 cents flat. back and it's 20 cents sharp.

i don't know why you think i was leading you on.

i'll get out a tuner and do it again.

g string is in tune. it's more pronounced on the wound strings. your fingers get a grip on the windings. g string 9th fret e is in tune. push forward and it goes 20 cents flat. back and it's 20 cents sharp.

i don't know why you think i was leading you on.

Out of curiosity, I just tried that with a tuner; Jason's right - push up toward the 12th fret, the tuner shows the string's slightly flat. Seems to be more pronounced pushing backwards towards the headstock, but that could just be the position on the fretboard. It's hard on the fingers, though!

:D :D :D

vic

whenever I bend any note on any string all my strings detune ever so slightly.
this doesn't happen with a hardtail. does it?
my strat has a trem. so a bending string adds more tension and the bridge rocks; detuning all the strings.
I never felt this was a drawback. I think it adds to the sonic character of electric guitars.

i'll get out a tuner and do it again.

g string is in tune. it's more pronounced on the wound strings. your fingers get a grip on the windings. g string 9th fret e is in tune. push forward and it goes 20 cents flat. back and it's 20 cents sharp.

i don't know why you think i was leading you on.

engineering speak -- I don't think you are leading me on. what I mean is the change in tension mechanics do not pass the engineering "common sense" test. I'm now home and have had a chance to check this. a couple things drop the pitch down slightly: natural decay of the note and contact position of the string on the fret. the downward shift is not easy to achieve or even much on a guitar with frets that have a nice rounded (precise) crowns. on flatter frets, the story is different. shift you finger toward the fret will cause it the string to make contact further back on the fret, lowering the pitch slightly. none of my guitars will drop more than 5 to 10 cents -- but I don't own any fretless wonder type guitars. my classical will only drop to same as tuned freq. what kind of guitar are you using and what fret profile?

whenever I bend any note on any string all my strings detune ever so slightly.
this doesn't happen with a hardtail. does it?
my strat has a trem. so a bending string adds more tension and the bridge rocks; detuning all the strings.
I never felt this was a drawback. I think it adds to the sonic character of electric guitars.

it doesn't happen with a hardtail. it bothers me when my guitar does this, and i'm going to add some springs and block the trem from dropping when i get a chance. that's how it was originally set up when i got it, and it was a good idea, especially considering how rarely i use the trem.

engineering speak -- I don't think you are leading me on. what I mean is the change in tension mechanics do not pass the engineering "common sense" test. I'm now home and have had a chance to check this. a couple things drop the pitch down slightly: natural decay of the note and contact position of the string on the fret. the downward shift is not easy to achieve or even much on a guitar with frets that have a nice rounded (precise) crowns. on flatter frets, the story is different. shift you finger toward the fret will cause it the string to make contact further back on the fret, lowering the pitch slightly. none of my guitars will drop more than 5 to 10 cents -- but I don't own any fretless wonder type guitars. my classical will only drop to same as tuned freq. what kind of guitar are you using and what fret profile?

a 10 cent bend is not nothing. it's possible i just bend notes more than you.
i'm using an acoustic guitar. an alvarez rf20sm. it's got round frets, normal height, nothing out of the ordinary. i doubt i could do this on my fretless bass without my finger sliding or digging into the wood.
if it's dropping with natural decay, it's because you're picking the string hard. and i'm also aware that if you push down hard, you'll pull the string sharp. i'm not doing either. did you try it with a wound string? let it bite into your callous a little so it doesn't slide, and pull hard parallel to the body. don't push down harder than you need to, just pull towards the bridge hard. it hurts a little to get a good one, like a big bend will dig into your finger a little. a fast tremolo will warble.
and it does pass the engineering common sense test. at least mine. even considering a fret with no surface area, a line, what you're doing is simply lowering the tension of the vibrating part of the string by having more string over the same distance. it's incredibly straight forward. in many ways like unwinding a tuner.
i don't know how to convince you. i could post a youtube video clip if you like when i get home. it'll be a couple days.

here's what steve vai said, and i'm inclined to believe the guy. regardless of whether you're into him, he's obviously a technique and theory master:

2: CLASSICAL VIBRATO

You can see most string players using this style. In this technique, you push the string forward, then pull it back. While pushing forward, the string will go flat because you're causing it to get looser from the tail piece to the fret you're on. By the same principle, pulling the string will cause it to go sharp. This is an effective vibrato because it modulates between going sharp and flat and makes it easier to control the intonation of the note. The drawback is that it's hard to get too radical with it.

got many guitars, great callouses, pretty good technique, a Peterson, the formulas and a calculator ... now if I can only find a force gauge ...

will get back to you, Jason.

You guys are WAY to technical for me- but I do vibrato the way Jason describes it.

It sounds to me like it goes both down and up. But...according to my cheap #~€~€ tuner, it actually doesnt' change at all. Time to get a better tuner.

best,
Ande

it's a valid technique, as it def goes up and down in a nicely subtle way. but I'm not convinced it could be entirely due to changing of tension by pushing axially on the string. if only from that, a 20 cent change would require lowering the tension by nearly 1 lb for a medium gauge steel string.

back when i was rockclimbing, i could hold up a 175 pound frame on shallow incline grips with the tips of my fingers and toes. one pound doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility.
anyway, here it is on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwtxHv0BDkw there's a slight delay in the sound from the video. as you can see, there is a small dip and rise just from axial pressure.
of course when you're playing a song, you're going to go much faster and the bend will probably be shallower, but hopefully sound nicer than that, which is just demonstrating the technique in one direction.

CLASSICAL VIBRATO

You can see most string players using this style. In this technique, you push the string forward, then pull it back. While pushing forward, the string will go flat because you're causing it to get looser from the tail piece to the fret you're on. By the same principle, pulling the string will cause it to go sharp. This is an effective vibrato because it modulates between going sharp and flat and makes it easier to control the intonation of the note. The drawback is that it's hard to get too radical with it.
Classical Guitar, nylon string is way more pliable and much, much easier perfom the axial vibrato than a steel string is, and the only method considered true vibrato by classical players. Steel string folks need to do bend style vibrato, most guitar players here do steel string mostly, right?

i took some classical classes before and have owned nylon guitars, but now i generally play steel string, yes.

(the quote is screwed up gotdablues, I didn't write that)

I am mostly steel string player as well, though I have a classical and use the axial method on it. bending on the classical is hard on the strings, and not nearly as effective as on a steel.

Jason: watched your vid. don't have a way to measure right here, but it sounds like the pitch might be finishing high toward fret too. going to see if I can measure it later this week. in any case two things from the weekend:

* classical guitar axial bending requires a lot less push/pull force because the tension is much lower (about a third of steel mediums). also the string is larger in diameter and much easier to grip. did a quick check and found I can push/pull in the center of the 'tween fret area (not getting near frets) and get this to work -- up and down. need to measure, but agree with you, clearly a tension change due to axial forces.

* On steel, I still think the axial push/pull is dominate by two other factors: tension changes due to forcing the string down to the f-board near the fret and change in length due to the string changing contact area on the fret. so I've been thinking about how to eliminate both and isolate to just the axial push/pull for measurement. think this will work: going to build up the f-board between two frets so the downward force will have less effect on both tension and changing fret contact. will measure then. unfortunately won't be able to do it until late next week -- go work and gigs. but will get back to you

i don't really understand your comment about what i was doing. the sound quality isn't the greatest from my laptop mic, anyway.
but, from your last post, you said it only takes a pound of pressure. i don't understand why that's out of reach in your mind.

i don't really understand your comment about what i was doing. the sound quality isn't the greatest from my laptop mic, anyway.
but, from your last post, you said it only takes a pound of pressure. i don't understand why that's out of reach in your mind.

because it's a pound that has to be achieved laterally by the grip of friction/callous-on-windings. that's not trivial, and is a lot more than required on a classical guitar. and it's not an issue on a violin or other non-fretted/high tension instruments, because the vibrato is done by rolling the finger to lengthen or shorten the string.

it's also because when I look at this, I see (much of) everything else that is going on at the same time as the finger attempts to push a pretty inelastic, high tension string (steel, not nylon) toward a fret. I'm more interested in understanding everything that's happening and the contribution of each to the frequency -- and other characteristics, than being right about my initial opinion. what does that get me? the possibility of using the info for other techniques, changes to guitar design ... don't know until I find out.