Vibrato and Bends
- Having a good vibrato is something that will differentiate good guitarists and great guitarists. Personally, I prefer a heavy, wide vibrato along the lines of Yngwie Malmsteen, Zakk Wylde, and Dimebag Darrell (RIP). This kind of vibrato is mostly accomplished by keeping your wrist and fingers stiff, and bending your elbow. However there will be times when you need to bend your wrist and fingers of course. Another way to do this is by twisting your forearm. Be sure to use two, three, or even four fingers if you can to maximize strength and control. I prefer to use two or three if I can, but sometimes necessity dictates that I use one.
- Your vibrato should bend the strings up and down, not side to side. I strongly advise you to go up and down, not side to side. The reason is that guitars have frets. Bending the string from side to side will not really affect the note very much besides giving you a “shaky” type of sound. It’s better suited to fretless instruments such as violins.
- Make sure to stay in key by as much as possible. You can use a whammy bar to increase the vibrato effect if you wish. Also, experiment with your vibrato speed to change your phrasing.
- Bending a note correctly is a necessity of becoming a great guitarist. The principles and techniques are the same as vibrato. Just hold the note instead of vibrating it. You will have to use different directions for different strings. Personally I bend the highest two strings up, and the lowest four down, but you should do what feels natural to you. Just make sure to watch out for the edges of the frets.
- In order to bend well, you need to train your ear to recognize half and whole step bends. Once you’ve mastered those, you can then move on to one and a half step bends and maybe even more. The trick is that you must hear the note and be able to bend precisely up to it. Many beginners make the mistake of bending to the wrong note because they don’t have the strength to do it, they don’t have the ear training to understand they are going off key, or both.
- Let’s play in A minor. We’ll bend on the G note. You should do a whole step bend because the next note in the scale is an A note, which is a whole step away. Similarly, we’ll bend from the D note to the E note. We’ll try these in a few octaves on different strings and frets. To train your ear to hear the correct note, play those two notes without any bending:
-------|-------|-------|-D--E-- -------|-G--A--|-------|-15-17- -------|-12-14-|-D--E--|------- -G--A--|-------|-12-14-|------- -10-12-|-------|-------|------- -------|-------|-------|-------
Now play the first note of each example and bend up to the second note. The pitch you bend up to should sound exactly the same as the previous exercise. Don’t go too high or too low.
-----|-----|-----|-D--- -----|-G---|-----|-15b- -----|-12b-|-D---|----- -G---|-----|-12b-|----- -10b-|-----|-----|----- -----|-----|-----|-----
- Now we’ll do some half step bends. Bend from the B note to the C note, which is a half step away. Also, we’ll bend from the E note to the F note. We’ll do these the same way we did the whole step bends.
-------|-------|-------|-E--F-- -------|-B--C--|-------|-17-18- -------|-16-17-|-E--F--|------- -B--C--|-------|-14-15-|------- -14-15-|-------|-------|------- -------|-------|-------|-------
Once again, play the first note of each example and bend up to the second note.
-----|-----|-----|-E--- -----|-B---|-----|-17b- -----|-16b-|-E---|----- -B---|-----|-14b-|----- -14b-|-----|-----|----- -----|-----|-----|-----
- Once you master whole and half step bends, you can now attempt one and a half step bends. For this example, we will bend from the E note to the G note, which is one and a half steps away.
-------|----- -------|----- -E--G--|-E--- -14-17-|-14b- -------|----- -------|-----
- Now you have some tools to perform some great phrasing on your solos. Combine bends with some vibrato for a great effect.
- You can also do a pre-bend, which has a nice effect, but it’s a little difficult. Silence the string by muting with your left hand, bend a string up to a note, and then strike it, and release the bend. You can even silence the string using your pick.
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