While “The Box” is a great place to start when learning to improvise in a rock context, just playing melodies using the notes in this scale can get boring pretty fast. However, If you can master the art of bending strings, “The Box” becomes an incredibly expressive musical tool.
String bending is the defining sound of rock and blues guitar soloing. It allows guitar players to gradually move up from one pitch to the next, like a good singer. It gives your lead lines a more vocal, singing quality, and that is always a good thing. Every single great lead guitar player has a comprehensive mastery of this technique. Particularly great examples of string bending prowess can be found in the playing of the 3 Kings (BB, Albert, and Freddie), Eric Clapton, Slash, Billy Gibbons, Angus Young, and many others.
Once you are comfortable with this technique, there are virtually limitless places and ways to apply it on the fretboard. However, for our purposes within “The Box”, we are going to focus on just three options. Luckily, these are by far the most useful and common places to bend! These three spots are highlighted in red in the diagram below. In all of our following Pentatonic lessons, the “good” bending spots will be highlighted in this way.
OK, so now that we know where to bend within “The Box”, exactly HOW do we execute a bend? Here we go…
Place your 3rd finger on the red dot located on the G-string, 7th fret. Then, back your 3rd finger up by placing your 2nd finger on the G-string, 6th fret, and your first finger on the G-String, 5th fret. Your thumb should be over the top of the fretboard.
Using your thumb as leverage, push the G-string up using ALL of the first three of your left hand fingers. They should work together as a unit. When you reach the note that is a whole-step (2 frets) higher than your starting note, bring it back down to the original pitch. Repeat this until it feels natural, then repeat this process on the red dots on the B string and E string.
A word on intonation and vibrato…
It is CRITICALLY important that you have a TARGET when you bend notes. Nothing sounds worse than flat or sharp bends! A great exercise is to fret the note a whole step up from the note you are going to bend, get its sound in your head (or better yet, sing it), then bend your note up to that pitch. Do this over and over again until the sound is ingrained in your brain!!!
If you are going to hold a bent note, you MUST add vibrato to it. Vibrato is a subtle shake of the note that causes the pitch to waver up and down very slightly. This gives the note a more vocal quality (listen to any great singer hold a note for proof). Vibrato is very personal, and is unique to every player. Listen closely to your favorite players, then develop your own style.
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