Andy Timmons explores a topic that’s near and dear to his heart — using string-bending techniques and related phrasing approaches to craft emotionally expressive melodic lines.
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00:00Hey everybody, Andy Timmons here. Welcome back to Melodic Muse for Guitar World. And we're
00:22going to continue talking about a subject near and dear unto my heart, and that is string bending.
00:26And maybe talk about a couple of my influences first before getting into some playing.
00:30And I recently got to go hang out with a dear friend of mine who also happens to be a hero,
00:34and that's Mr. Steve Lukather. And he came through town with Toto and Journey. They were
00:40playing a double bill, sold out at the arena here in Dallas, which is great. Having a sold-out arena
00:45show with Greg Guitar Rock, it was very heartening. But had a wonderful hang with Luke that day,
00:50went to see him that night. And again, he's literally, you know, I've got more from him
00:56than almost any other player. Such a huge influence. But I hadn't seen him live like
01:01in an arena, you know, ever. So I'd seen him in some other places along the way. But, you know,
01:05tremendous player. But I was really blown away. I was moved so much. Every time he bent a note,
01:12it really just went straight inside me. And it was a recognition that, A, you know,
01:17I heard myself in his playing because it's such a big part of how I approach the bends
01:23and how I find pitch. And he was so in the middle of that pitch that we talked about in the last
01:28lesson, finding the center of the pitch. And he's textbook for that. And I know that Larry Carlton
01:32was an influence on him. And he's another guy that I learned immense amounts from. That first
01:36Larry Carlton solo record with Room 335 and some of his great early tunes. That whole record is
01:44everything you need to know about bending 101 and beyond, honestly. So these two guys,
01:49big influences on me. Great to see Steve recently and just be so blown away. It brought
01:54me to tears. It really, truly did. And as I've talked about Jeff Beck before, seeing him and what
01:59he does with string bending. It's just mind-blowing. So let's continue the path here. Let's talk about
02:04some more techniques and hopefully it can improve all of our bending. Okay, so now we're going to dig
02:09into bending through a scale. We're going to start with C-sharp Dorian as it applies to the C-sharp
02:15minor blues we're going to get into here in a little bit. So let's hear the sound of that C-sharp
02:19Dorian all on the G string because that's where we're going to be bending. So I'm going to start
02:23on the B. C-sharp, D-sharp, E, F-sharp, G-sharp. What do you want to call that? A-sharp, I suppose?
02:33B, C-sharp. So we want to get that sound in our head.
02:40Now that's another practice I love anyway, is practicing scales horizontally.
02:44Okay, now we're going to do a series of bends that are going to go from one note and bend
02:54up to the next scale note. Okay, so if we're going to start on that same B on the fourth
02:59fret, I'm going to bend from that B to the C-sharp. Again, trying to find just the center
03:05of that pitch. No vibrato. A lot of strength coming from the two fingers behind, thumb behind
03:16the neck. Now, to the note that I just achieved with the bend, I'm going to fret that note
03:21and then bend up to the next scale note. Okay, so we have... You could either re-articulate
03:30or just slide it. I do that a lot where I'll start the sequence and not pick another note.
03:37I'll just do it all by slides. Now, we've got... This next bend is a half-step because the next
03:47scale note is E from the D-sharp. So we have... So that's kind of new what we're talking about.
03:55That's just a half-step bend from D-sharp to E. One of my favorite bends is that where
04:02you can find a good half-step. And this is usually where it is. It's in that when you've
04:06got a minor chord. The third, if you bend from the nine. Now, from that E, the next scale tone
04:20is a whole step. We're bending from E to F-sharp. Next one is F-sharp to G-sharp. G-sharp to...
04:30We're going to call it A-sharp. Always feels weird saying A-sharp because it's inharmonic
04:35with B-flat, but in this key it is A-sharp. Then A-sharp to B. If we want to complete the
04:42octave, B to C-sharp. So as an exercise, well, the way I would combine this, why I connected
04:48this... That's a nice way to do it. Do a release... Again, an overbado at the end. Or maybe a little
04:49reward at the end.
05:13All right, so what goes up can come down. So let's do the whole thing in reverse. Let's
05:23start at the octave, where we start here on the G-string, and we're going to go up to
05:28that, math is good, 16th fret on the B.
05:36So pay attention as you're going through this, the strength that it takes and the articulation
05:44that you're getting, not only from the bend, and it's the release, and then sliding into
05:51that next note, setting yourself up to where the next bend occurs. I'm getting as much volume
05:59out of... Then we articulate...