The Logic Off Topic list

Hendrik Jan Veenstra wrote:
> Might have to do with different string tension maybe.  I mean,
> bending the string will increase tension which in turn will probably
> affect the relative volume of overtones.  Pitchbend otoh does nothing
> but shift the pitch.

Actually, bendings on a guitar sound that different because it's just no
100% exact technique in almost all cases. This includes both the physics of
the instrument - a bend on the B string sounds pretty much different from a
bend on the G string (just for that matter, *any* note will sound different)
and the playing techniques involved in bending. There's almost no guitar
player doing bendings without a more or less slight vibrato on the bended
notes, actually that's a great part of a personal style, then the timing of
the bendings varies pretty much as well (at least usually).

And then there is the (unfortunate) effect that many guitar players simply
are lousy in bending. This might result in wrong tunings (worst) or some
unpleasant vibratos. Unfortunately even truly great players often have a
bending technique that makes listening to them some kind of a pain. IMO
Steve Morse is one of them. He's a kickass player by technical means but his
bends almost allways just have that kinda too fast, whiny and clumsy
sounding vibrato on them (ah yeah, flame me for that :-)

Actually, investing a bit of time in my bending technique really improved my
playing a lot, but most guitar players never ever think about this, they
just seem to think that bending "just works".

The same might be true for the pitch wheel on keyboards - you just gotta
practice it to get it right.

On the guitar I had some practises like bending each note to the second
above with each finger in each position. Then I did a bend-release using the
same approach. Then reverse bends (which is one of the hardest, it means
prebending a note without actually hearing it, then picking it and releasing
it, Larry Carlton used to use that quite a bit). I also did that for thirds.
Or for "note-bend-to-second-bend-to-third" patterns (cool Steve Lukather
like effects are possible that way, IMO a hot candidate for the guitar
player with the greatest soloing tone ever - even if I don't like almost all
of his stuff at all).

The next thing I practiced was applying in-time vibratos on the bends
(actually I allready studied in-time vibratos without any bendings before).
1/4 notes, 1/8 notes, 1/16 notes, triplets, etc.

While bending a major second might not require too much practise on a
keyboard (as it's the default max. setting on almost all synth patches) all
the other techniques are perfectly applyable to playing synths as well.

Cheers,
Sascha