Bending Vibrato (Guitar Lesson TE-009) How to play

Justin's Completely Free Guitar Lessons, Technique Lesson TE-009, Lesson 9.

This lessons shows you how to add vibrato to a bend. It's pretty straight forward really, and should not be too hard once you know how!

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/TE-009-BendVibrato.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

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Have fun :)

.

Hello, Justin here again.

In this lesson we're
gonna be checking out

how to add vibrato to a bend.

Lots and lots of people
seem to struggle with this.

It's actually relatively simple,
when you know the trick.

And the trick is:
To let the string do the work.

Now, what I mean by this is...

In all of my bending stuff
I have been using this note D.

So, I am going to stay on that.

That's... Third finger,
third string, seventh fret.

Once you've got a bend... going,

and I am going to be using
a tone bend for this little exercise now.

There's a lot of pressure on the string,

trying to push the string
back down to its natural place.

You are having to use quite a lot
of effort to get that note bent up,

making sure that you are using
a good bending technique here.

If you haven't got it already,

you will not be able
to put the vibrato.

If you're trying to do it
with your fingers straight

without the thumb over
and using the pivot point

you're probably not going to be
able to do a good bend with vibrato

So... If you're one of those guys,
go back and learn to bend properly first,

and then come back
and have a look at this lesson.

So... As you bend up,
you've got all of this pressure,

the string pressing down.

Now, the trick with
adding vibrato to a bend

is to first of all make sure
that you get the bend in tune and stop.

If you watch my other vibrato series,

you'll notice that I talk about
hitting the note,

and then gradually opening up the vibrato.

And this is quite important
with a bend as well,

because you need to get the bend in tune
before you get the vibrato on,

otherwise it can sound to the listener...

that you never actually reached the note
that you were trying to bend to.

So, you bend up to the note first,
then what you do is:

You relax your fingers ever so slightly,
relax the pressure....

Let the force of the string
push your finger down a little bit,

and then press it back up.

And it's worth doing this
really slowly first.

So, we are going to go to a close up,
and just going to bend the note up,

and then relax my finger a little bit
so it comes right down,

and then push it back up
to the correct pitch,

let it come down a bit
and back up to the correct pitch.

Each time you are just going from here,
let it come down, back up,

come down, back up.

And you don't try and pull the string down

you just let the string
kind of go back to where it wants to go.

Don't fight the pressure of the string,
just relax it, push it back up,

relax it, push it back up,
relax it, push it back up.

And if you can get used
to doing that nice and slowly

and you get the feel for it,
then starting to do it faster

becomes a lot easier.

So, let's go and have a look
at a close up of this,

and... Hopefully it will sort
your bending vibrato out.

So, here we go,

we're starting with
our regular note here,

which is the note D: Seventh fret,
third string, third finger.

Now, we are going to start
by bending that up a tone.

So, if you are not sure about
your bending technique anyway,

you might want to check it just first,

(Plays)

Make sure you can get that nicely in pitch

(Plays)

Now once you've got the bend up like this,
what you are going to try and do

is let the string
push your finger down a little bit,

and then push it back up
to the same pitch.

Let the string go back to where it wants
and then push it back up.

Now I'm just going
to do that nice and slow...

(Plays)

Relax, push it back up,
relax, push it back up,

relax, push it back up.

You're not relaxing it
right back to the beginning,

right down to the base,
you're just relaxing it a little bit.

(Plays)

Trying to get a consistent amount of...
Relaxation and pressing it back up,

and trying to get it right back
to the same pitch each time.

(Plays)

And once you've got that down,
you've got that feeling.

So practice that for a bit first,
if you're new to bending with vibrato,

you want to give that a week or two
of practice, five-ten minutes a day.

Once you've got that idea,

then you can start experimenting with
the intensity or the speed of the vibrato

(Plays)

You can see the neck is
wobbling around a little bit.

Still keeping my good grip
and my pivot point

like we did for the bend

(Plays)

Or a bit slower...

(Plays)

You can get really crazy with this stuff.

A nice trick is bending it up, back down,
back up and then putting a vibrato

(Plays)

Takes quite a lot of control.
Get the note up...

(Plays)

A little bit sharp that time for me,
actually a bit naughty,

(Plays)

... Then getting your vibrato good

(Plays)

Slow
(Plays)

Faster
(Plays)

(Plays)

Quite a tricky one to get the vibrato
happening all of the way down.

But, again, experiment,
just like I talked about before.

Emulation, experimentation, and ease.

Emulating people's bends, that you like...

(Plays)

Nice tip there,
you can do that sort of stuff

There's a lot of things you can do.

Experimenting,
like I was just trying to do

trying to get the vibrato
to happen all the way down the note

(Plays)

You can go crazy with these things...
It's quite good fun.

Remember, it has to be easy,
but if you've got your bending technique

and you've got your pivot point
and your thumb over,

then you shouldn't find it
too difficult at all.

Now, the other kind of things
that you need to know about this one.

First of all, if you're going to do
any of these sort of stuff

with the first finger,
then you tend to pull down with that.

Pushing up with your first finger
is pretty difficult,

so you tend to...

(Plays)

So, this time you're
pulling the string down

(Plays)

And, again, letting the string
relax back to where it wants to go,

which in this case is physically up,
and then pushing it back again...

(Plays)

And of course, the same would apply
if you were doing a big bend like on...

You know, quite low down...
If you are bending this here,

this note D, which is fifth fret,
fifth string, third finger, up to E

(Plays)

You have to be... Relax,
push it back, relax, push it back...

(Plays)

It's quite a good trick
to remember on those thicker strings.

You're not likely to do that a lot,
so you don't have to practice that.

You don't have to practice it as much.

The ones I'd practice,
is definitely your third finger,

I don't even bother practicing it
with my little finger

because I don't really think that works,
and I don't know of any pro guitar players

that do a lot of bending
with the little finger...

Might be a couple of the rock guys,
but very, very, very few of them.

So, I wouldn't worry about doing that.

Very rare to bend
with the second finger as well;

it's possible,
Clapton does it a little bit.

You might want to practice doing that.

I don't usually do bends
with the second finger.

So, if you're using your first finger,
you're going to pull down

and then add your vibrato.

Most common bending with the third finger.
If you're new to this sort of stuff,

I would just recommned practicing
getting your bend with the third finger...

(Plays)

And then let it relax and push it back up.

Make sure you practice
all the parts of the guitar neck as well.

So, that's giving you a bit of a look
at how to apply vibrato to a bend.

Of course, the same rules apply that
we talked about with the basic vibrato,

making sure that you practice it
all around the neck,

because in each different part
it's going to feel a little different.

So, you don't want to just
try it in the one spot; practice it a lot.

As you're practicing it, try and
get it right in the one place first,

so you get the right feeling.
And then be moving it

right up, as far up as you can go,

and down as low as you can go,
which is probably second or third fret,

you're not probably going to
do big bends in the first fret

unless you have fingers of steel or you're
Stevie Ray Vaughan or something like that.

So... I think that's probably enough
for you to get going on that...

If you've got any questions,
check out the forum,

look for the TE-009 area of the forum,

and we'll get your questions
answered there.

I hope that helps, and...
See you again soon.

Bye bye