Bending notes

Hi,

I'm no expert, so this might not be what you're after. But I tend to to work through that sort of thing in three overlapping stages - Look Feel, and Listen.

So to begin with I'd probably just bend a note and watch the fingertip - check the positioning of the tip, and watch all the angles - too far across, too upright, too low, etc. See if my either my whole hand was getting out of shape, or just a smaller detail somewhere. I'd see which one works the best and which one is giving unreliable results. Try and pick what was different about when it worked comfortably and when it didn't. Strength might be a part of it - but I find that with guitar it's often really more about control and accuracy than sheer muscle power.

Then I'd switch to concentrating on how that feels - what does the hand shape and tip position/angle feel like when it's nailing it, as opposed to when it's off the money? Once I'd got the feel right, and could drop the looking part, I'd concentrate on the sound (which is the only bit I consciously notice when I play. I honestly don't really know what my hands are doing by then - I expect them to know their job - and I certainly don't think about note names or how many millimetres to bend a string...). So then I'd just listen and listen and listen while I fine tuned the sweet spots of getting the sounds. If it seemed to be unravelling at any stage I'd refer back to the previous steps.

As far as making progress quickly, for me it always boils down to staying motivated enough to keep going - both in sheer time spent, but also at a high enough level of concentration. In my case that's alway tied to enjoying it - so I never ever just do plain drills or exercises, I always turn it into a little improvisation or tune, because that's what I like doing. That's how it works for me anyway.

But I'm sure that others will have better or more technically correct ideas. :)

Good luck with it, I'm sure it will soon come back.

Cheers,

Chris

Props Chris, I'll give that a go. I'd assumed my hand was weaker, and it may be, but I overlooked the possibility that I might be bending differently to how I used to. I don't think I am, but it's worth paying it more attention. I'm supporting the bend with my other fingers, but my hand tires easily and then I start to miss pitches. That's why I figured it was lack of strength/stamina. I'll let you know how it goes.

if the action is too low, it might might actually be a little tougher to get a grip. also, if you are usually playing a Strat with floating trem (or any guitar with a floating trem) or a guitar with a harp tailpiece (large distance from tailpiece to bridge), a Tele will feel comparitively stiffer ... because it is: less extra string length and/or trem to "give" and soften the bend.

you gotta go from the side. slips come from over the top where you expect it to obey. you gotta get to the side of the string and give it a good hard shove. why do you think blues guys pull faces. it's not always easy.

Sara, I'm not surprised about the problems with bending.
I don't have any solution other than to say it's going to take a while to build up the strength in your hand after being away from guitar playing for a while.

What I can say is, that after 30 years of doing nothing too much more strenuous (with my hands) than lifting a pen or a board marker, that the hardest part of guitar playing for me is building up the strength in the fingers to do what is required to make bearable guitar noise.
I think "strength" is an understated aspect of guitar playing . . . probably because most people start at an early age and adapt more easily. I didn't start until I retired and after 20 months of practice, I'm just getting to the point where it is comfortable to play only because I don't have to strain to play. I'm sure if I was younger it would have taken less time to build up the muscles. As for bending strings . . . sigh . . . I'm not even sure if I want to go there.

Probably someone who has taken a year off from guitar playing can give you insight until how long it will take to rebuild the muscle strength you had.

I think "strength" is an understated aspect of guitar playing . . . probably because most people start at an early age and adapt more easily. I didn't start until I retired and after 20 months of practice, I'm just getting to the point where it is comfortable to play only because I don't have to strain to play. I'm sure if I was younger it would have taken less time to build up the muscles.

Hi Ken,

I'll say the exact opposite - that "strength" is an over-rated aspect of guitar playing. It's a misleading term that beginners often seem to take the wrong way. It's not the kids' muscles that adapt quickly, it's their brains. :wink:

I have lousy handwriting, but it's not because I lack "writing muscles" or can't summon the force required to grip the pen properly. It's because I've been slack about putting the time in to develop the proper control. The muscles are there, it's the mental code to run them properly that hasn't been keyed in yet. Same with guitar - it's more like penmanship than push-ups. It's not about being able to apply larger amounts of force - it's about being able to apply modest amounts of force with more precision. That does require muscles to achieve, but it's not about power. It's about placement, and about posture and hand position to get the right mechanical efficiency. Get that right, and the rest follows.

Every so often you see threads about gadgets to build strength in your hands. They're for selling to newbs who don't know any better, and belong in the same class as "Rule the neck instantly with these guitar secrets..". They're rightly derided as a waste of money, whenever they get mentioned. If you had spent those 30 years doing manual labour, and had a muscular build, you would still have been lousy at guitar for about the same amount of time - because it's mostly about getting new forms of control and accuracy and not really about developing more powerful muscles.

The beginner almost always tries to use use strength as a substitute for accuracy. You just about push the strings through the neck in an effort to stop them buzzing or muting. But as you progress, the sounds improve - not because you're building the strength to push harder, but because you're getting more control and more accuracy with your placement. Your touch should be getting lighter, not stronger - and if it isn't then you're doing it wrongly. Just listen to a beginner strum, the problem isn't weakness, it's having no 'touch' - no subtlety, control and variation. And with the fretting hand it's an issue of not being able to place all the fingers accurately. You might get one right, and a couple nearly right, but you only need one to be a bit off to hear the bad noise. It's about brain programming, not doing push-ups with your fingers.

I'm sure that there are exceptions who, for some medical reason, have really weak hands. But the average person has the required strength. I have a video of Tommy Emmanuel, who can play freakishly fast and complicated music , which sounds likes there are several people playing at the same time. In the video he made that very point, and actually held his hand up and said something like "look, no Arnie style muscles in my hand, it's not about building muscles'... If you held the guitar string with a pair of pliers or a shoelace you'd have no trouble pulling it sideways, and could probably snap it quite easily. Most of us do have the strength in our arms and fingers, we're just not used to applying it in mechanically unfamiliar ways, through a somewhat slippery fingertip. When I first tried a bend I thought "You must be kidding - this thing's a cheese slicer waiting to remove my fingertip...!" :shock: But after a few minutes spent working out how to hold the hand and finger(s) in a way that allowed me to apply the force that was already available, then I was away...

Cheers,

Chris

Well, this is one thread I CAN contribute to - having played the Telecaster in question, it felt almost exactly the same as mine. Now I tend to bend a lot of notes during solos - probably more than the average lead guitarist, as I really like the sound of bent notes. Not that I'm any great shakes on lead, I'm a better rhythm guitarist - but I have practised a lot over the last couple of years.

Sara, I found your Tele to be set up pretty similarly to mine - like I said in another post in the News section, you were bloody lucky to get it back once I laid my hands on it! - and yes, I did find it very easy to bend. So I'd say, yes, you probably have lost a little strength, not to mention being out of practise - and if that's how you improv when you're feeling less than 100%, well, watch out world when she gets her strength back!

It might not be just finger strength, though - you may be a little rusty all round, though I didn't notice....but I'm sure, with practise, it'll all come back. Hey, it was there before - and it's like riding a bike, you never forget.

:D :D :D

Vic

Maybe I'm just being a little impatient. I think a combination of gnease's and Vic's posts may well explain a good deal of my problem. I love my Tele, but before this break from playing, I was mostly using my Strat (with floating trem), and Epi LP guitar, so gnease's points make a lot of sense. That said, it was brilliant to get the wisdom of someone who has actually played the guitar in question (and I'm an idiot for not thinking to ask...), so I can rule out "anything major about the guitar itself being difficult to use" - if there's anything difficult about the guitar, it's probably my not being used to it.

But all of the comments and suggestions, both here and by PM have been great, and I'll keep them in mind as I work on this. Thanks for helping figure out where to go on this one. :)

Hi again,

I'm sure that some members will find my posts too wordy to bother reading - or think I'm talking bollocks anyway when I say guitar doesn't need to be about strength. So here's a quick photo. It's not very good, because it started to rain as I got set up and I didn't feel like reshooting, much as I love you all....

But look at how much "strength" I'm applying to get that bend. Looks a heck of a lot like none at all to me.... apart from the arm strength needed to hold the guitar up. That amount of bend was achieved (on a single string of course) by ONLY the weight of the neck of the guitar. It's just balanced. I'm not pushing against my thumb, which is below the neck and not used at all.

What makes it easy is what Gnease mentioned - my finger tip has plenty of room to get a decent position under the string.

The poorer your technique, the more you'll try and make up with it by "strength". Get the fingertips in the right place and the hand comfortable and you don't need anything like as much as you think. :wink:

Honestly.... I like doing things the easy way, which mostly means the most efficient way...

EDIT: Disclaimer - This is NOT a demonstration of how to do bends. It's simply an illustration to show how much a single string can be bent sideways when balanced firmly on the end of a single finger. The finger is simply sitting there and the bending has been produced by the unassisted weight of the guitar.

I am so sorry to go off topic but damn, your guitar looks great is that an SG ?

And uh about bending well, just keep at it :D *thumbs up, shiny smile*

Sara, remember that most of the motion (using that instead of "strength" because, as Chris notes, it's not really about strength) needed for good bending isn't actually from the fingers but actually from the wrist. If you've a decent hand position, it will come from using your wrist as you would to turn the key of a car ignition. The wrist will give the fingers the push they need.

I know you've been playing enough to know that your finger is supposed to slip from being on top of the string to pushing (or pulling) from the side (as Jason mentions, and that is certainly a mistake a lot of beginners tend to make), but if you're trying to do it all with just the fingers, you'll definitely run into problems trying to get more accurate with the notes you're trying to reach on the bends.

Hope this helps. And a belated welcome back.

Peace

I'll say the exact opposite - that "strength" is an over-rated aspect of guitar playing . . . . It's not the kids' muscles that adapt quickly, it's their brains. :wink:
Well . . . that certainly explains my difficulty . . . quite well. :mrgreen:

Scarecrow

I agree with Chris C that strength usually isn't the issue and the one thing I have always been told is to ALWAYS use two fingers to bend.

I know there are rare occasions when you can't (and they are rare) but 99% of the time you should be using two fingers to bend strings.

Now Chris maybe you posted that picture as a demonstration of the fact that you aren't using your thumb for leverage but you should be using two fingers to do the bend not just the middle finger.

Now Chris maybe you posted that picture as a demonstration of the fact that you aren't using your thumb for leverage but you should be using two fingers to do the bend not just the middle finger.

Good point about what that pic is trying to show. :) So I've added a disclaimer. I was just trying to show how easily you can bend a single string way across the neck, on a single fingertip, without using so called "finger strength" at all. No doubt somebody will tell me that my fingertip is exerting an equal and opposite force to the weight of the guitar neck... but it's not being done with muscly fingers. :wink: And there's no off-camera midget groupie hanging on the headstock to pull it down either... it's just me and gravity...

I am so sorry to go off topic but darn, your guitar looks great is that an SG ?

Thanks. It's an Epiphone SG400, which is a pretty inexpensive guitar. That one was made in China.

Cheers,

Chris