BENDOLOGY…

The evolution of string bending from classic 70s blues-rock to contemporary progressive math-rock

Some aspects of electric guitar playing are so totally established as orthodoxy that they seem almost immune to change: standard tuning is a de facto, er, standard; open chords, powerchords and ‘blues box’ scale shapes too. Like a goldfish and the water it lives in, we don’t really question their existence.

So it came as a bit of a shock to some in August 2021 when Polyphia’s Tim Henson innocently related to music Youtuber Rick Beato that he rejects conventional string bending techniques of the ‘Boomer’ generation “because it’s gonna sound like that era”. Henson intended no disrespect (he actually paid homage to his heroes Jimi Hendrix and Black Sabbath) but in a conversation ostensibly about ‘modern’ guitar, Tim made it clear that he’s most interested in new approaches and techniques.

Here at TG we saw in this the opportunity to learn something new about guitar playing. So read on as we provide a taxonomy of key species of guitar bends from classic to contemporary. Learn them all, experiment with them in your own playing and you’ll surely become a better guitarist whatever music you’re into.

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1 CLASSIC BEND #1: BLUES BENDS

A huge core of electric guitar soloing is blues-based, and, though there are many blues bends, most connect adjacent notes in the minor pentatonic and blues scales. For example, in the A blues

b scale (A C D E E G) you’d typically bend from C to D, D to E, G to A,

b D to E or E, and occasionally the wider bends of A to C and E to G. Equally important are the microtonal ‘blues curls’ that fall between the frets’ tunings – most commonly the ‘neutral 3rd’ between C and C# in the key of A. These are all fundamental to 60s and 70s icons like Tony Iommi and Jimi Hendrix, and are still widely used by countless artists such as Mdou Moctar, Jake Kiszka, Joe Bonamassa and more.

BLUES BENDS ARE FUNDAMENTAL TO 60S AND 70S ICONS LIKE CLAPTON AND HENDRIX, AND ARE STILL WIDELY USED TODAY

3 CLASSIC BEND #2: BEND AND SHAKE

We’re in Angus Young and Paul Kossoff-style blues-rock territory here. Both players turn the electric guitar into a highly emotive instrument, emulating the human voice with their expressive leads. A common technique they both use in doing so is adding vibrato to string bends – reminiscent of a heartfelt blues/soul vocal ‘cry’ or ‘wail’. Whole-tone bends (two semitones) rule the roost here.

2 CONTEMPORARY BEND #1: THE TWEAK BEND

Tim Henson’s own intro in Polyphia’s G.O.A.T. features several of these. We're calling it a ‘tweak bend’ – it's a rapid upor up‑down bend, usually played quickly and without vibrato between the semitones of a diatonic scale (e.g., F# and G in the key E minor). There’s none of the bluesy flavour associated with classic minor blues bends, just a restrained but committed attitude when you get it right. Play it with a light overdriven single coil tone for a Polyphia vibe.

4 CONTEMPORARY BEND #2: THE WOBBLE BEND

With a fragile, ‘wobbly’ quality reminiscent of whammy bar vibrato, this technique can be heard in the opening bars to Lost by Ichika Nito. Its microtonal expressivity is reminiscent of the Japanese koto instrument, and, with typically less than a semitone of pitch variation, it exists on the boundary of vibrato and conventional guitar bend. The timing should be synced to the musical metre – almost like the pulsing effect of a chorus pedal.

5 CLASSIC BEND #3: THE UNISON BEND

Surely you know this one! The outro solo from Jimi Hendrix’s Allalongthe Watchtower is a great reference for a technique which involves a string being bent up to a simultaneously held note of the same pitch. To do it, fret a G on the first string at the 15th fret and an F on the second string (18th fret). Pick the two strings together then bend the F to match the G. The resulting scream and dissonance between the two notes is heightened as you bend, then resolved when you hit the target.

OF TG’S 20 GREATEST SOLOS OF ALL TIME, 14% OF ALL THE NOTES INVOLVED BENDS

6 CONTEMPORARY BEND #3: THE CLUSTER BEND

While the unison bend has survived numerous generations of guitar solos, it has also diversified. A notable contemporary example is the ‘cluster bend’, where the bent note – rather than reaching its unison target – stops a semitone short, goes a semitone above, or targets another deliciously dissonant interval. Hear it in action at 2:04 in Ulysses by Alluvial, where guitarist Wes Hauch plays a semitone bend into b 5th b 2nd and intervals.

7 CLASSIC BEND #4: THE LEGATO BEND

String bends have long been played alongside other lead guitar articulations. One common approach is to use legato (slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs) on either side of the bend to create a collective phrase. A great example comes between 5:53 and 5:58 during Allen Collins’ solo in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird. This sort of slippery articulation is part of the established electric guitar vocabulary and there are countless variations on the theme.

8 CONTEMPORARY BEND #4: THE SLIDY BEND

We’re homing in on Mateus Asato’s solo on Polyphia’s Drown between 2:14 and 2:16 for this one. He’s using a bend in a more complex way, adding intricate slurs and slides to proceedings. It’s basically: bend, hold bend, slide up a semitone, slide down again, then release the initial bend and finish with a pull-off. Sound easy? Think again. These are surprisingly challenging to execute in tune, and the virtuosity may well go unnoticed because they’re often fleetingly brief.

9 CLASSIC BEND #5: THE MELODY BEND

Some solos use bends to create complete melodic phrases rather than just as momentary inflections. We’re looking at you, David Gilmour – the outro solo in Pink Floyd’s Anotherbrickinthewall,pt.2 features a couple of examples like this. These potentially string-snapping licks are tricky to execute, and demonstrate that the ‘classic’ era of rock was in no short supply of sage string benders. Save your strings by downtuning by a semitone and playing one fret higher!

10 CONTEMPORARY BEND #5: THE TAP BEND

Fans of contemporary math-rock acts like Chon, Polyphia and Covet will be no strangers to tapping – the technique is at the heart of these acts’ styles. Tapping bent strings expands the available range for bends and allows phrases to continue almost indefinitely – the tap providing additional energy to the string. Though considered a ‘modern’ rock technique, it was already commonplace by the mid 80s thanks to the influence of players like Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai.

11 BEND DENSITY: TOP 20 SOLOS

The most significant change to string bends in soloing might just be the simplest – the striking reduction in their number. Back in issue 341, we analysed the Top 20 Greatest Solos Of All Time – which were mostly from the 1970s. We found that close to 14 per cent of all notes in these solos were string bends.

12 BEND DENSITY: SKYHAVEN – LIFTOFF

Let’s compare this 14% bend density to the virtuosic solo on Skyhaven’s Liftoff, which features a heady post-prog blend of rhythmic sophistication, diatonic and borrowed chords, tasteful neo-soul inflections and hyper-shred. Tim Henson’s exquisite and intricate 240-note 16-bar solo only has a handful of bends, and even these are generally blues-adjacent and non-unison devices. It has a bend density of just over 2% – a stark contrast to the classic style. Indeed acts such as Chon and Covet have complete tunes with few – if any – bent notes.

13 AVERAGE BENDS PER BAR: TOP 20 SOLOS AND LIFTOFF

Another – and perhaps more accessible – way of considering bendiness is in terms of ‘average number of bends per bar’, as opposed to which proportion of the notes are bent. Here again there is a marked difference: While our classic solos sample had on average over one bend per bar, Henson’s solo averages just 0.3 (less than one bend every three bars). This is further compounded by the fact that at 77bpm, Liftoff is significantly slower than the 106bpm average of classic solos, and Tim’s solo is particularly virtuosic and notey.

14 THE ZERO BEND

So perhaps the final and most radical bend we should include is... one that doesn’t exist: the ‘Zero Bend’. A frivolous inclusion, you say? Well okay, guilty as charged! However, it’s not without precedent in the math-rock genre. Yvette Young’s work with Covet features barely a single string bend. Who knows if future generations will one day look back at the quaint and dated bending techniques of Boomers and Zoomers alike as they explore AI, robotic and mind-controlled hyper-bends among perhaps a renaissance in CDS, denim and NFTS.

These waveforms shows a blues bend from G to A and a ‘blues curl’ between C and C#.

polymath Polyphia’s Tim Henson rocking his Ibanez THBB10

Note the rapid ‘hump’ profile of a quick tweak bend from F# to G and back.

The G pitch is held steady then the vibrato starts as the bend reaches A.

F and G are played together, before the lower note is bent to match the upper note’s pitch.

The slow, wide wobble bend teasing towards but never reaching the adjacent chromatic notes.

Hammer on from C to D, bend up to E, then down to D before pulling off back to C.

We said they were brief! See how quick the D# and D notes are in the downward part of the phrase.

One picked D note is bent four times to produce a five-note melody. Consider downtuning to save your strings!

The lower note bends and stops at a dissonant minor 2nd interval with the upper note.

Bend D (third string, 7th fret) to E, then tap the 12th fret to produce A, which is released to the bent E and bent back down to D.

Of the 20 Greatest Solos of All Time (which had an average release date of 1979), a full 14% of all the notes involved bends.

Behold, the zero bend!

Tim Henson’s solo on Skyhaven’s Liftoff shows a 2.1% bend density. About 7x fewer than a selection of 20 classic solos.

On average there’s more than one bend per bar in a classic solo. Tim Henson’s virtuosic solo in Liftoff has only about 0.3