The Logic Off Topic list

Sascha Franke said:

> 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 :-)

I kind of agree with this. The opposite would be Gary Moore who has that'I
am going to bend the string 3 tones and hit that note even if it rips my
finger off' approach.

Of course one of the all time greats for multi string bending is Gerry
Donaghue.

Jimmy Page often bent flat (especially live), but his style allowed it and
it became part of his trademark.

Just to keep some racial balance, another of my all time favourites for real
accurate and fluent playing is Michael Schenker. His solo on the live
version of RockBottom (Strangers In The Night) is still one of the all time
greats for me.

Of course we could talk all weekend about great guitar players (I could
anyway). There's John McCloughlin (who can forget that performance at
Seville in early nineties).

The question about guitar string bend compared to pitch wheel raised seemed
daft to me, then I realized maybe it's not that straight forward to
understand to a non guitarist. When you bend a string you are adding all
sorts of imperfections to the note and harmonics along with fret noise and
pickup characteristics as the string passes between poles. When you pitch
bend on a keyboard you are bending the note with harmonics and noise all in
unison at the same rate. Quite recently I wanted to create a sort of false
string bend by holding a note and using SoundForge to create the bend. The
note died much quicker than it would have had I bent it naturally. I
wouldn't say I am exactly one of the Worlds great guitarists, but string
bending is probably one of my stronger points and if I don't make the note
properly or fret noise takes over prematurely I always go for a retake as I
think it can sound really frustrating, unless it becomes a feature.

I wish you hadn't started me off about guitars and guitarists!