How to bend
A String On Guitar
Guitar Bends - Beginner Guitar Lesson
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hey everybody it's Carl brown again
today we're gonna talk about something
that's really common to pretty much
every guitar style and that's bending
I'm sure you've seen people do it when
you watch any other guitar players play
and we're gonna just kind of talk about
the hand position and really what you
should be doing with your hand and
fingers to try to be able to control the
strings when you're doing bends it's in
the beginning it's it feels almost
impossible to do it feels like you have
to have like just you know enormous
amounts of strength to do it especially
if you're playing it on an acoustic this
this is going to be much more difficult
to do it on an acoustic it's people do
do it on acoustic but if you have both
guitars electric and acoustic I would
probably recommend trying to learn this
technique first on a standard electric
guitar then moving it over to an
acoustic guitar after you've got built
some strength and some calluses up in
your fingers these exercises also
speaking of calluses you may have got to
the point now you've been playing a
little bit we've been playing through
all of our lessons and you're like yeah
I can play my fingers don't really have
any discomfort anymore I've got the
right amount of calluses to play chords
and some scales well when you do Bin's
it's a whole new ballgame so you're
probably gonna feel some discomfort
again so you know in the beginning maybe
practice them for just a few minutes a
day but don't get to the point where
you're blistering your finger tips and
stuff alright so but then on acoustic
guitar especially really be really
careful you don't want to you know do
too much at once the added benefit of
this this will make your fingers you
know besides the ability to do pins
they'll make your fingers stronger and
your calluses far far better and you'll
find that as your calluses get harder
and get more defined playing anything on
the guitar is easier because you
literally don't you don't have to push
the screen down as hard if you tip
through your fingertips are a little bit
stiffer it's just like you know anything
in life and if you want to push
something with something if you use a
harder object you get to put less effort
into it so bad
gonna be the same thing here right now
you're you you like the borrower cords
on my piece I'm still difficult because
you don't have enough callus here the
skins not tough enough so the screen
just kind of goes into the skin sounds
gross I know but it's it's basically
just what you're gonna have to go
through and when you build calluses
everything becomes much easier to play
because you really get to use less force
so let's talk about hand positioning
with the bins you can really there's a
lot of little various ways that people
do bends this is kind of like a good way
of getting you started and then
depending on what your hand feels it
feels good in your hand you can do make
slight adjustments first thing we're
gonna do we're gonna take the little
pocket here with your thumb and first
finger and just basically hold the neck
put the neck right in there okay that's
kind of like a rough way of starting to
get you into shape now you notice that
that puts the thumb over the top of the
neck you will notice that 99% of players
when they're doing bins their thumb goes
up here unlike when we're playing scales
and bar chords when we don't have that
when you're doing your thumb up here
it's gonna see how it makes your fingers
actually angle in this direction as
opposed to when we're doing Barre chords
and your fingers go straight up to the
ceiling so this position is far more
comfortable to get AB in and get good
control the strings because if you're
straight up you can't really bend your
fingers straighten out and and you can't
really get any tension what the thumb
does when you see a thumb up here you
know your hand is angling in this D
fingers are angling in this direction
plus it acts as kind of like a kind of
like an anchor point like a focal so you
can really kind of work against it when
you're doing the bends alright now let's
talk about a bend itself I'm going to
take my third finger and place it on the
second string at the eighth fret and the
middle of the fret board is a good area
in the beginning to practice your bins
it's not that much strain tension
there's a lot of string tension down
here and up here the frets are kind of
harder to get up get into so I'm gonna
start about the eighth fret here
I'm gonna cut my hand I'm looking from
the neck put my thumb up here and then
you'll see
that I used I'm gonna put my finger
right up against the fret so I can
actually use the fret as I kind of a
ramp the edge of the fret all right and
what I'm gonna do also is I'm gonna take
this second finger behind it and hold
the string to put it right behind there
it can be touching the third finger just
right up against it and so that's going
to help it so it helps hold the string
down and then we're gonna take our first
finger and just like in a lot of things
the first finger it can hold the string
down here but you notice how it's going
a little bit past and it's kind of hole
rubbing up against the string right
above it which is going to be the third
string and this this this situation the
reason why we do that is when we do a
pin and you lower it if you don't have
that first finger kind of controlling
that third string from vibrating if I
took that away
see that and you hear that third string
there it so you bend into the third
string and then you let go this you sent
the third string in motion so this first
finger usually it's when you have your
hand angled like this with your thumb up
here it's easy to get that first finger
just you can still be on the string that
you're bending still helping the other
two strings but just coming over and
some people just drew a really dramatic
it like mute all we need all the strings
almost with our first finger but at
least the string right above the the the
note that the string that you're trying
to do a bend on should be muted with
your first finger and then the other
remainder lower strings can be muted
with the but the base of your palm down
here and your and your picking hand
alright so when we're bending we're not
bending with our fingers you see my
fingers are arced here and they come
down straight down on the fret board
right up on the line you want them to
stay like that through the bend you see
how my fingers aren't getting straight
when they're doing the bend
they're staying exactly straight down on
the thing the actual bin comes from the
hand the back of the hand and the wrist
area when I'm doing Ben if I could show
you here when I hold the note and then I
got to know it in my hand and basically
the fingers the fingers job is just to
hold the note down and then I will see
how my wrist comes out
you see that wrist motion like that I
just basically bring my wrist out a
little bit and see how that makes the
the hand of fingers go upwards so if
I've got everything stabilizers held
very strong here my hit might my my
holding leotards almost like a baseball
bat and just really gripping that neck
hold everything firm so that's the hands
job to hold everything firm and then
Bend out just push that wrist out like
that you see my wrist in my forearm I
going out I'll exaggerate it a little
bit so you can see what's going on all
right and then if you have the proper
tension here all right so you can
practice the pitch of these strings real
quick is just do this take the eighth
fret then up to the tenth get this down
to that note that's a whole step in your
bending this so you want this to sound
like it's two frets higher after you
bend it and then mimic that
[Music]
and just try to get that hand
positioning down do it at a different
place fifteenth fret two frets higher
and then and different strings you see
how I'm muting that first the string
right underneath it with the first
finger here and then the rest of strings
are being mute about the base of the
pole okay so obviously when you're on
the small strings you're gonna have to
bend upwards when you get down to the
the WoW strings a lot of people Bend
downwards and that's just the opposite
motion you kind of pull your hand in you
pull your wrist and a little bit but you
still yeah it's kind of easier to kind
of pull down when the third string
people pull in different directions and
depending on what's one finger they're
doing they've been with right now I
would just concentrate bending with the
third finger that's 85% that bends are
done with your third finger on the
guitar and then you can move on to try
the same thing with the second finger
the second and third finger are by far
the ones that are used the most all
right
so have fun with this don't get
blistered up hands and please go to toe
lessons 365.com and let me know what you
think and I will see you there
alright appreciate it bye-bye
you
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