Remember as I explain to you in the monologue, the blues is not only about what you play, but how you play it. And I am going to show you some techniques to facilitate that, so you not playing it like, sounding like (Guitar playing) like it sound like, you are just typing on a really cool typewriter.

A lot of things can change. This right here, (Guitar playing) can change to (Guitar playing) with a little slide and a little vibrato. So let me break down these techniques to you one at a time and then I will show to you how to put them into rest to give you (Guitar playing) you are soloing some excitement and some flavor and what we call technically in music “total shaping”. Okay!

Technique number one called “bending”. Now, what are the things that I notice about a lot of my first year students, interested students in general? You can always tell to a guy who is not playing very long, because his bends are to pitch. When you bend the string and what I mean by that is this (Guitar playing). You are actually taking the string (Guitar playing) playing it as a straight note and bending the string either upward or downward motion (Guitar playing) to give it a different feel to it.

Now, a lot of guys seem to think that you can just do this arbitrarily, just end of the string but you cannot. You have to bend the string to a specific pitch. Okay! I am going to tell you what that means right now. Now, here an example let us say that we are using a 3rd string 7th fret. I am either going to do a half step bend, a full step bend, or step and a half bend. What that means is I am going to be bending this note (Guitar playing) which is D, which is the 3rd string 7th fret as a half step bend, a full and a half step or one fret. So, specifically as I said before we are going to bend this note (Guitar playing) to this pitch (Guitar playing) so rather than this (Guitar playing).

I have seen this a hundred times, I have seen guys that, they are trying to raise up string use there eyes to see how far they bended up. In order to make the bend proper, do not even think about doing that, do not use your eyes to play music, use your ears. So when you bend the string, the best way I can tell you to make sure that your bends are on pitch, you start with a note that you have (Guitar playing) that is point A, be were you should bend the two the pitch that you should bend it too (Guitar playing)

And hear that in your ear (Guitar playing) and try top match that pitch (Guitar playing) hear that? That is the half step bend. Now, before I go any further, I want to say, a couple of things that I do, is when I am doing my bends I at least get one other finger behind it. There is a saying that “many hands make light work”, in this case, “many fingers make light work.” In order for me to bend that, especially to like a full step or (Guitar playing) a step and a half with one finger, that would be really hard for me to do, number one. Number two, if you try to do it with just the third finger, you are going to get this a lot of times get this.

Listen to this (Guitar playing) and as you pull back down, you hear those runaway strings, you do not want that. So, two things that I think need to happen in order for you to do some good quality bends. Number one, get at least one other finger behind it. Now this is going to be tricky, it is going to take you some practice, but if you practice it, it is going to help you a lot, it is going to cut down over it. As a matter of fact, it will eliminate that over it. I take my first finger here and I am going to gently lay it on top of the strings that I am not using, okay! So, if I were to play those strings I get this (Guitar playing) they are just dead. So as oppose to do this (Guitar playing) hear notes, those little runaway strings right there. If I just barely lay my first finger here, when I come back from that bend listen to this, (Guitar playing) and when I am done that is all you hear is the note that I intended for you, that is called clarity and that is a good technique.

So, watch this section again if you have this one of the most important things that you can do concerning bends (Guitar playing) see my first finger there. Now, once again, making this creative, we can do a straight bend of pitch (Guitar playing) or we can do this like a vibrato type (Guitar playing) hear that? So, instead of this, (Guitar playing) either way, it is up to you, that is your salt and pepper, they are your spices, that is what you are going to put in there and how much you use it, how you are using that. That is completely up to you.