Andy Timmons On Approaches To Expressive String Bending Techniques

Guitar World

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.

Transcript

00:00Hey everybody, Andy Timmons here. Welcome back to Melodic Muse for Guitar World and we're going

00:22to continue talking about subject near and dear unto my heart and that is string bending and maybe

00:27talk about a couple of my influences first before getting into some playing and I recently got to

00:31go hang out with a dear friend of mine who also happens to be a hero and that's Mr. Steve Lukather

00:35and he came through town with Toto and Journey. They were playing a double bill, sold out at the

00:42arena here in Dallas which is great having a sold out arena show with Greg Guitar Rock. It was very

00:47heartening but had a wonderful hang with Luke that day. Went to see him that night and again he's

00:53literally you know you know I've got more from him than almost any other player. Such a huge influence

00:58and but I hadn't seen him live like in an arena you know ever and so I'd seen him in some other

01:04places along the way but you know tremendous player but I was really blown away and I was moved so much

01:09every time he bent a note it really just went straight inside me and it was it was a recognition

01:15that a you know I heard myself in his playing because it's such a big part of how I approach

01:22the bends and how I how I find pitch and he was so in the middle of that pitch that we talked about

01:27in the last lesson finding the center of the pitch and he's textbook for that and I know that Larry

01:32Carlton was 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 and some of some of his great early tunes that whole record

01:43is everything you need to know about bending 101 and beyond honestly. So these two guys big influences

01:50on me great great to see Steve recently and just be so blown away it brought me to tears it really

01:55truly did and as I've talked about Jeff Beck before seeing him and what he does with string bending it's

02:00just just mind-blowing so let's continue the path here let's talk about some more techniques and

02:05hopefully he can improve all of our bending. Okay so now we're going to dig into bending through

02:11a scale we're going to we're going to start with C-sharp Dorian as it applies to the C-sharp minor blues we're

02:16going to get into here in a little bit so let's hear the sound of that C-sharp Dorian all on the G

02:20string because that's where we're going to be bending so I'm going to start on the B

02:24C-sharp D-sharp E F-sharp G-sharp what do you want to call that A-sharp I suppose B

02:33C-sharp so we want to get that sound in our head

02:37you know 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 up to the

02:54next scale note okay so if we're going to start on that same same B on the fourth fret I'm going to

02:59bend from that B to the C-sharp again trying to find just the center of that pitch

03:06no vibrato

03:09a lot of strength coming from the two fingers behind

03:14thumb behind the neck

03:16now to the note that I just achieved with the bend I'm going to fret that note

03:22and then bend up to the next scale note

03:24okay so we have

03:27you could either re-articulate or just slide it

03:31do that a lot where I'll start the sequence and not pick another note I'll just do it all by slides

03:39now we've got

03:43this next bend is a half step because the next scale note is E from the D-sharp

03:49so we have

03:50so that's kind of new what we're talking about that's just a half step bend from D-sharp to E

03:58one of my favorite bends is that where you can find a good half step

04:03and this is usually where it is it's in that when you got a minor minor chord

04:08the third if you bend from the nine

04:10now from that E the next scale tone is a whole step

04:21bending from E to F-sharp

04:24next one is F-sharp to G-sharp

04:27G-sharp to we're going to call it A-sharp

04:31always feels weird saying A-sharp because it's in harmonic with B-flat but in this key it is A-sharp

04:36then A-sharp to B if we want to complete the octave B to C-sharp

04:43so as an exercise well the way I would combine this why I connected this

04:49that's a nice way to do a release

04:53again an overbado at the end

05:09or maybe a little reward at the end

05:12all right so what goes up can come down

05:20so let's let's do the whole thing in reverse

05:22let's start at the uh at the octave

05:26where we start here on the G-string

05:27and we're going to go up to that uh math is good

05:3016th fret on the B

05:40so pay attention as you're going through this

05:42the strength that it takes and and the articulation that you're getting not only

05:45from the bend and it's the release

05:50and then sliding into that next note setting yourself up to where the next bend occurs

05:56I'm getting as much volume out of

06:03then I'll re-articulate

06:05I'm getting as much volume out of

06:11then I'll re-articulate

06:15as who's out of

06:17then I'll re-articulate

06:18huh

06:22yeah

06:24okay

06:26yeah

06:27man

06:28logical

06:30smack

06:31yeah

06:33yeah

06:33okay

06:33yeah

06:34yeah

06:35yeah

06:36yeah

06:38yeah

06:39yeah

06:40yeah

06:42yeah

06:43yeah

06:45yeah

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