How To BEND STRINGS On Electric Guitar Without Hitting Others

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Improve your string bending technique with these five quick tips.

In this guitar lesson I'm covering how to solve some of the most common guitar bending problems. If you're finding that you're hitting other strings, you have unwanted strings ringing out, you're struggling to bend high enough or you just want some advice on what songs and riffs you should be learning to improve your string bending technique, then this is the tutorial for you.

Timecodes:
00:00 - Intro
00:16 - Tip 1: Use Multiple Fingers
00:50 - Tip 2: Roll The Fingers
01:27 - Tip 3: Use The Index Finger To Dampen
02:07 - Tip 4: Use The Picking Hand To Dampen
03:04 - Tip 5: Learn The Right Songs

Tip 1
Use multiple fingers to bend the string whenever possible. The pressure doesn’t need to be evenly distributed between each finger. For instance if you're bending with the third finger, then the majority of the work is done by the third finger, the second finger has a little less pressure and the first finger is barely doing anything. The first finger becomes useful in other ways though which are explained in tip three.

Tip 2
Roll the fingers as you bend up. This is a great one for making high string bends a lot easier and it stops you from hitting the strings above and sounding them out. Start on the tips of the fingers and as you bend up, roll onto the pads. This way, when you roll, the tip of your fingers will move to catch the other strings above and push them out of the way. Everyone has slightly different fingers, if you have a large nail bed (nails that grow very close to the tip of your finger) you might have a harder time, just make sure you cut your nails very short. There’s plenty of famous players with large nail beds, Jimi Hendrix being one, so it’s still perfectly doable, it might just look a bit different to the way my fingers are doing it.

Tip 3
Use the index finger to dampen as you release the bend. If you're rolling the fingers correctly to hold unwanted strings and push them away as you bend up, as you bend down and release the bend what you might find is that they sound out as you release the string bend. To stop that from happening have the index finger a bit higher and flatter than the other fingers so that its tip touches those unwanted strings and dampens them.

Tip 4
Use the picking hand to dampen unwanted strings. Because you're usually going to be bending on the thinner strings it's a good idea to rest the front of the wrist of the picking hand on the thicker strings to dampen them. Just don’t dampen too many because it can block the string that’s bending from getting all the way to the top. When you don’t want to hear the release of the bend, you can use the side of the picking hand to dampen the string. Or you can also use the side of the thumb or the pick itself to dampen the string.

Tip 5
Make sure you practise your string bends by learning the right songs and riffs that ideally, gradually ramp up in difficulty.

Here's some to check out:
A Girl Like You - Edwyn Collins
Yellow - Coldplay (simplified)
Fire solo - Jimi Hendrix
Can't Stop solo - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Are You Gonna Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz

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I haven't practiced bending enough and it's very frustrating sounding the other strings when they grab my fingers during the pull off. Thank you for this video! I will try muting with my index finger. Such a simple thing and yet there are many technical considerations to get it just right.

Philzy
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Great stuff - I watched a bunch of videos for the bend issues I'm having and yours was awesome as you display the wrong way (exact issues I'm having) followed by the correction - seems like more guitar videos should do that.

Rebellovw
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Long time (9yrs) classical guitar player here, learning to play electric guitar, and had a nightmare dealing with muting techniques, especially with note bending. This video was absolutely brilliant, thankyou 😁

thn_ol
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Nice & concise, vibrato next? Cheers 👍🏻

johngregorowski
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Tip 3 might’ve just brought back my entire passion for guitar. I spent so many years working so hard on so many things yet could never get that string above to be quiet. It was so frustrating and I haven’t played on a consistent basis for 5 years now. I think I’m gonna pick up my guitar when I get home now.

alukeofalltrades
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currently learning to play body paint by arctic monkey and this video helps a lot to fix my bending!!!

hanjo
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You should have loads more subscribers. Good tips succinctly explained. Nice!

daithiod
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tip number two: so simple but effective. thanks!

wasnatehere
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This has helped my solo on "Just what I needed " by the Cars. So this video was just what I needed!

keiffer
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Been learning the Just What I Needed solo by the cars and this video instantly helped clean up unwanted notes ringing out. Thanks!

jbclips
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Pick muting and palm muting were the first techniques that really showed me how important dynamics are and basic techniques like Vibrato and bending, Left handed muting combined with palm muting and all types of styles of techniques to help dynamic playing is what truly let a player express themselves ❤

jye_
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great video, tip number 3 was what I needed =)

theshauneshow
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Michael, thanks for the great video! Tip 2 took care of the issue for me. I didn’t even have to practice it. It was more just thinking about rolling my tips while bending and it grabbed all the other strings.

weloveug
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What a fantastic video. Well done this is so needed.

SticksAandstonesBozo
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As soon as you mentioned “That Gilmore solo”, I spammed myself as I have been working on the Shine solo for months as my first solo lol. Excellent tips for not sounding other strings thanks 😊

samanthaallix
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Thank you so much. You just literally made my LIFE easier. ❤️😬

brendajeannewyche
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Thanks! That was the info Ive been looking for.

drtymur
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Very helpful I learned to bend from this, and i learnd to mute the string on the bend down

Meat_Ball_Sub
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I know im late, but I love you for this video

trailerparody
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Great video.
I’m coming from acoustic. I was taught to place my fingers at 90 degrees to the fretboard.
Is there a reason why electric players have their fingers angled?
Hope this makes sense!

thelukos