Country Guitar String Bending

Bending strings is a huge part of country guitar soloing, and is a sound you’ll hear used to great effect by almost all legendary play-ers.

One of the most common uses for bending strings is the imitation of pedal steel guitar, a major influence on the sound of country gui-tar. This wonderfully expressive instrument in played using a slide (known as a tone bar) and a series of foot and knee levers to change the pitch of strings.

Here’s a great video of Gary Carter playing some solo steel guitar, give it a watch and pay attention to the way he bends notes up and down constantly.

Imitation of pedal steel is a complicated task as the instrument is so complicated; but the thing the steel guitar can do that guitarists can imitate is the bending on one note while notes around it remain static.

In order to practice this idea I’ll usually think of the intervals I’m playing and why I’m playing them. So as an example, in the following lick I begin by playing the 2^nd and 5^th, then bend the 2^nd up to the 3^rd. So against an A major chord, you’re left playing the 3^rd and 5^th, or chord tones.

Once this bend has been played, I hold the 3^rd on the B string and move the note on the high E string down a tone to cre-ate some melodic interest before releasing the bend and resolving to the root.

From here, I slide down to the b7th on the B string and bend it up to the root, while playing the 3^rd on the high E string.

As you can tell, ideas like this are all about knowledge of the fret-board and the chord you’re playing over. These concepts can be applied to any string group, or even amounts of notes, but that’s far too deep a subject to cover in a short web article! There’s a whole chapter on it in my book, Country Guitar For Beginners, that’s the best place to take these ideas to the next level.