Latest / The Steve Stine Podcast / Gritty Blues Bends

Transcript

Gritty Blues Bends · The Steve Stine Podcast

• 1:06
  Steve: Hey everybody, it's Friday, July 17th.
• 1:10
  Steve: It is actually my birthday today.
• 1:12
  Steve: Got a little extra time, so I thought I would go live and show you a couple things that I think are kind of cool that could help you with your soloing to try and make it again sound a little more authentic.
• 1:20
  Steve: And what we're gonna do is talk about adding some grit to your solos by using some unique style bands.
• 1:28
  Steve: So let's just go ahead and get started here and look around, okay?
• 1:31
  Steve: So what we're gonna do is we're gonna begin with the A minor pentatonic here, okay?
• 1:37
  Steve: If we find just that first position, we're gonna start there and then we're gonna start building out from there.
• 1:43
  Steve: So what we're gonna do here, the first thing I want to show you is this.
• 1:46
  Steve: I wanna show you this thing.
• 1:50
  Steve: So what we're gonna do there is we're gonna start in the middle of the pentatonic scale here, using 5-7-5-7.
• 1:56
  Steve: Okay?
• 1:58
  Steve: Right there.
• 1:59
  Steve: Thanks everybody.
• 2:01
  Steve: And what I want you to do here is understand that when you're in these these two strings here, the seventh fret of the fourth string is your root, right?
• 2:09
  Steve: There is your A.
• 2:10
  Steve: Okay.
• 2:11
  Steve: So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go to the seventh fret of the third string, and what I want you to do is do this little slide that moves from seven to eight and then back.
• 2:22
  Steve: Now we're sliding up to the blues note, but again, it's meant to be just kind of this aggressive kind of gritty sound.
• 2:28
  Steve: So a great thing that you can do if you can is add a little bit of a scrape to the beginning of it.
• 2:36
  Steve: And then what we're gonna do afterwards is we're gonna do a pull off.
• 2:40
  Steve: Now I'll show you the way I usually do this, but again, do whatever you like with this.
• 2:44
  Steve: But what I'm gonna do is I've got that slide.
• 2:48
  Steve: It's very quick, and then I'm gonna do my pull-off.
• 2:58
  Steve: Okay, and then after I do that pull-off, I'm gonna go to my route and I could be done.
• 3:04
  Steve: Hey guys, thanks for joining.
• 3:07
  Steve: But what I like to do is I'll I don't know why, but I always tag it like this.
• 3:15
  Steve: So I'm just going back.
• 3:17
  Steve: That's not really the point, but I just want to show you what I'm doing here.
• 3:23
  Steve: So there's a lot of staccato going in there.
• 3:25
  Steve: There's that scrape in there, the little slide.
• 3:29
  Steve: Again, it's not just like that.
• 3:32
  Steve: You're trying to add some grit, some musicality, some aggression.
• 3:38
  Steve: You'll even notice like that staccato stuff.
• 3:43
  Steve: Instead of just all the time.
• 3:45
  Steve: Be aware of those kinds of things.
• 3:47
  Steve: Again, I'm what I'm doing, you don't need to do it verbatim, but explore these ideas when you're practicing.
• 3:53
  Steve: You know, think about staccato versus like legato or slow and fast.
• 4:01
  Steve: Like always think about contrast.
• 4:04
  Steve: So what we've got so far is just this little, the little scrape, the slide, the pull-up.
• 4:10
  Steve: And then I'm just going round robin.
• 4:15
  Steve: And a lot of times what I'll do is when I get to this five, I give it a subtle tiny, tiny little bend.
• 4:24
  Steve: And it's called a blues bend.
• 4:25
  Steve: And what happens is right before you're ready to leave to go to the root, you don't do it early because it'll sound like it's out of town.
• 4:32
  Steve: Or out of town, out of tune, okay?
• 4:34
  Steve: What you want to do is wait until right before you're ready to leave, right before you're ready to take off, you give it just a little twist, and then you go to wherever you're going, in this case, the root.
• 4:47
  Steve: So don't go and hold it because it'll sound out of tune.
• 4:51
  Steve: Just stay there, and when you're ready to leave, just wave goodbye by doing a little bit of a twist.
• 4:57
  Steve: And I'm just adding all of that together at once.
• 5:04
  Steve: And there's no tempo, rhyme, or reason.
• 5:10
  Steve: Like I could come to rest on that seven.
• 5:15
  Steve: Or not, you see?
• 5:17
  Steve: So that's the beginning of this.
• 5:19
  Steve: So start with that.
• 5:20
  Steve: And the next thing I wanna do is I want to show you the bends that I was talking about, adding some grit to your play.
• 5:25
  Steve: So the next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna go, again, we're we're playing five and seven right now in this A minor pentatonic.
• 5:30
  Steve: What I'm gonna do is move up to nine.
• 5:32
  Steve: Now, this is one of my favorite things to do when I need some aggression, okay?
• 5:36
  Steve: Is I'm gonna bend this up.
• 5:37
  Steve: And hypothetically, it would be like a three-fret bend, but I don't want you to worry about so much about the distance.
• 5:44
  Steve: I want you to worry about the execution.
• 5:46
  Steve: Just think that you're gonna kind of bend it high, okay?
• 5:51
  Steve: And so what I'm doing is I'm bending it kind of over bending.
• 5:54
  Steve: I'm bending it high, and then what I'm gonna do is as I bring the bend back down, I'm gonna just direct myself into that seven.
• 6:04
  Steve: So you're getting this little dip of a slide getting over to the seven, and again, there's no it it's it's a consequence.
• 6:10
  Steve: It's not really anything to worry about.
• 6:12
  Steve: I just want you to understand that you don't have to go, you're not making it all nice and pretty.
• 6:16
  Steve: You're bending it up, and as you bring it back down, you're heading to that seven.
• 6:23
  Steve: Okay, let's see.
• 6:25
  Steve: I have heavy strings played with my brother's guitar, who has lighter strings and sounded way better.
• 6:30
  Steve: I use pretty light strings as well because of the stuff I'm showing you right now.
• 6:34
  Steve: So that's what I'm doing, is I'm bringing it up and then I'm dropping down.
• 6:39
  Steve: And when I get there, that's when I immediately go into that lick.
• 6:48
  Steve: And you can you can hang that bend out there for a little bit, right?
• 6:52
  Steve: It doesn't need to be there for a long time, but you don't have to be scared to hold it for a little bit.
• 6:59
  Steve: And you can even establish yourself on the seven before you do the slide.
• 7:09
  Steve: You see?
• 7:10
  Steve: So it's just, it's, it's trying to get used to understanding you're creating a sound and a feel.
• 7:15
  Steve: It's not so much about like the lick has to be perfect, it actually doesn't need to be perfect.
• 7:21
  Steve: You're looking for that that aggression.
• 7:28
  Steve: That kind of thing.
• 7:32
  Steve: And again, no rhyme or reason to the tempo.
• 7:35
  Steve: Okay?
• 7:36
  Steve: So that's one thing I want you to explore and be okay with it feeling awkward at first.
• 7:41
  Steve: Because it's not nice and pretty.
• 7:42
  Steve: It's meant to be kind of ugly.
• 7:46
  Steve: And I am doing a scrape going into that ninth fret bend.
• 7:50
  Steve: I do that a lot because it just sounds more uh Chuck says, hello Steve.
• 7:55
  Steve: I run tens on my Les Paul, but they still bend okay.
• 7:58
  Steve: And Chuck, they will because a Les Paul generally has a shorter scale, and therefore putting a little bit thicker string on there feels a little bit more comfortable.
• 8:09
  Steve: If you have a longer scale, like a 25 and a half, like an Ibanez style, a 24 fret style, it's gonna feel a little more aggressive, a little tighter if you put a set of tens on there because the scale is longer.
• 8:22
  Steve: Uh, Steve, when you bend, do you know what you are bending to, or is it just a feel?
• 8:26
  Steve: In this case, it's a feel.
• 8:28
  Steve: Okay.
• 8:29
  Steve: This blues bend, you can hear us how it's just going, uh-uh, right?
• 8:37
  Steve: It's not a specific place.
• 8:39
  Steve: There are times, obviously, when we bend, where we want to bend to the right note.
• 8:45
  Steve: But in what we're talking about today, it really has nothing to do with that.
• 8:48
  Steve: It's more of a sound, right?
• 8:50
  Steve: More of a feel.
• 8:54
  Steve: So that bend right there, what I'm looking for is just that.
• 8:58
  Steve: I want it to go up and just be kind of like I'm yelling.
• 9:03
  Steve: And then I'm dropping in, I'm dipping into this other.
• 9:08
  Steve: Okay, so I'm at five and seven here, if you're watching it uh vertically.
• 9:18
  Steve: So it's getting used to, again, sometimes when when you're not used to this sort of thing, it can feel awkward because it's it feels like it's it's out of control.
• 9:27
  Steve: And it it takes a while to get used to that.
• 9:29
  Steve: It's just something to do, right?
• 9:30
  Steve: Think about the very first time you tried to do like a pick slide or something and it felt really stupid and awkward.
• 9:36
  Steve: It can feel that way sometimes when you're doing stuff like this until you dial it in.
• 9:40
  Steve: So here's the other thing is we can take this same idea and add a couple other bends to it for you to explore.
• 9:47
  Steve: So, for instance, and just instead of just using this nine, what I could do is go up to the 12.
• 9:55
  Steve: Now, this one's gonna be more of a whole step style bend, but again, I'm not worried about perfection.
• 10:00
  Steve: It's more the delivery.
• 10:07
  Steve: And I want to get down there, and then if I need to prep myself on that seven for a second before I do the slide to make sure I can execute it properly, that's okay.
• 10:15
  Steve: So if I have now the other one that sounds really cool is if you go to 14, and again, more of a whole step style bed.
• 10:30
  Steve: And it's that giant kind of Steve Vaiish distance that sounds kind of cool.
• 10:39
  Steve: Now, obviously, with all this stuff, you really can't overuse it because it'll sound contrived then.
• 10:45
  Steve: You don't want that, okay?
• 10:46
  Steve: You just want to add this sometimes when you need a little more aggression.
• 10:49
  Steve: And remember, your aggression also comes from your guitar tone, it comes from your approach.
• 10:56
  Steve: Like playing more staccato.
• 10:58
  Steve: If I if I play very legato, it doesn't sound quite as aggressive.
• 11:03
  Steve: When I get into, you know, I can get more aggressive, maybe a wider vibrato.
• 11:20
  Steve: You kind of get the idea, right?
• 11:22
  Steve: So that's what I'd like you to work on something new for you to to kind of explore a little bit.
• 11:26
  Steve: I'm gonna give you a couple more, okay?
• 11:29
  Steve: Since I got just a little bit of time on my hands.
• 11:31
  Steve: So what we're gonna do here is we're gonna stay in that A minor position, but we're gonna do something new.
• 11:35
  Steve: We're gonna go now.
• 11:38
  Steve: What I'm doing is I'm going to the six fret, which is actually coming from what we call the diatonic scale.
• 11:43
  Steve: But I don't care about the six.
• 11:45
  Steve: I'm just using the six as a vehicle to bend to the eight.
• 11:50
  Steve: Okay.
• 11:51
  Steve: And keep that in mind because I do this a lot with my playing.
• 11:54
  Steve: You'll hear a lot of players like Joe Bonamasa will do this.
• 11:57
  Steve: Marty Friedman does this a lot, if you know who Marty Friedman is.
• 12:01
  Steve: Um, there's a lot of guys, uh uh Eric Johnson does this a lot.
• 12:04
  Steve: So the point isn't the six, the point is it's it's a note that's outside the pentatonic that's being bent to a note of the pentatonic.
• 12:13
  Steve: Okay, so I'm going coming up, I'm playing seven, five, and that's leading me into this sixth bend.
• 12:24
  Steve: Now I'm not done.
• 12:25
  Steve: Okay, that sounds fine.
• 12:27
  Steve: Going to the eighth sounds great, but this is the cool part, is what I'm gonna do then is after I get done, I'm gonna slide up while this is bent.
• 12:36
  Steve: I'm gonna slide up, so I'm letting the slide back down or the bend back down as I slide.
• 12:41
  Steve: I'm gonna get to a uh 11 and I'm gonna bend it up, and it's becoming a 13, which again is another note of the scale.
• 12:51
  Steve: But that intervalic distance between this bend and this bend is what makes it sound kind of gritty, kind of cool, kind of different.
• 13:03
  Steve: Okay, so again, the 11 isn't necessarily the note that we're looking for in a scale, it's a vehicle for the bend.
• 13:12
  Steve: Okay, and it's really cool when you start thinking about that because you can go to a lot of notes that are outside the lines and bend it to something that you want.
• 13:21
  Steve: So here's another example.
• 13:23
  Steve: If I went up here into this A minor pentatonic box right here, so 12, I'm playing 12, 15 on the on the uh fifth string.
• 13:31
  Steve: And then I'm playing 12, 14, 12, 14, 13, 15, 12, 15.
• 13:36
  Steve: Some of you know that, okay?
• 13:38
  Steve: And it's okay if you don't, but that that's what the pentatonic would be.
• 13:43
  Steve: Now, instead of playing that, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go to this 14 and bend to the 15.
• 13:53
  Steve: Now I could bend that 14 to the 15 and then move on.
• 13:59
  Steve: So what happens is I'm just doing this bend and then and then moving off somewhere else.
• 14:10
  Steve: So if you think about it, I'm kind of isolating it, I'm doing the bend, and when I get done, I'm giving it just a tiny little space of of air before I start the next note.
• 14:22
  Steve: That way, kind of sounds like BB King stuff.
• 14:29
  Steve: So the first note is out of tune, so to speak, because it's not part of the scale, but it bends to the note that you want.
• 14:36
  Steve: Thank you, Ryan.
• 14:37
  Steve: That's really nice of you to say, man.
• 14:42
  Steve: And then you go wherever you want.
• 14:43
  Steve: Now, here's another thing I could do.
• 14:45
  Steve: I could bend that 14 up and then go to the 15 and bend that up like I normally would.
• 14:56
  Steve: You know, I could do something like that.
• 14:58
  Steve: It doesn't matter.
• 14:59
  Steve: You can do whatever you want.
• 15:00
  Steve: I could play.
• 15:05
  Steve: Now it's gonna sound chromatic.
• 15:07
  Steve: Now I'm playing this, again, this is my A on the 14th fret, and then I'm going to 13, which is pentatonic.
• 15:13
  Steve: 14 does not make sense.
• 15:15
  Steve: But if I play it and then do a half step bend, it sounds kind of cool.
• 15:21
  Steve: Let me show you my uh my terrible rendition of what I use my Marty Friedman influence on, which I do this a lot.
• 15:30
  Steve: So if I go to the A on the 14th fret of the third string of this pentatonic shape right here.
• 15:39
  Steve: Okay, so I can do whatever right there.
• 15:42
  Steve: So now what I can do is I could go to the 13 in front of it and bend that 13 up to the 14.
• 15:49
  Steve: So I play the 14 and then I reiterate that sound, which is an A, by playing the 13 and bending it.
• 16:06
  Steve: Now again, a great thing to do is when you come out of that band, don't bring it back down.
• 16:11
  Steve: What you'll notice about these bands that I'm doing, these out-of-tune bands, is I'm not really bringing them back down.
• 16:16
  Steve: I'm just leaving.
• 16:25
  Steve: You see?
• 16:25
  Steve: So they take some time.
• 16:27
  Steve: It takes some practice because it's unusual.
• 16:29
  Steve: Chuck, uh, let's see here.
• 16:31
  Steve: Who do I have?
• 16:31
  Steve: Eddie says, so these bends sound experimental to me.
• 16:34
  Steve: Will there be times when it does not sound right?
• 16:37
  Steve: Yes.
• 16:38
  Steve: And and and remember, Eddie, it's the delivery of the way that you're doing it, right?
• 16:44
  Steve: And it's got to be part of your style.
• 16:46
  Steve: Like for me, I like wide intervals and I like this aggressive sort of stuff.
• 16:51
  Steve: It fits what I enjoy doing.
• 16:53
  Steve: So if I go for a band, that that feels comfortable to me to play that way.
• 17:04
  Steve: Um, but I'll tell you, what's interesting is when I was a kid and I was learning how to play, for whatever reason, as we are as humans, I used to think of scales as right or wrong.
• 17:16
  Steve: You were either in the right scale or you weren't.
• 17:18
  Steve: And if you if that note didn't fit, you weren't allowed by the guitar gods, you weren't allowed to play that note because it wasn't part of the scale.
• 17:25
  Steve: And so I was very diligent that way.
• 17:27
  Steve: And there are times when that's very important, right?
• 17:31
  Steve: I mean, it depends on the style of music, it depends on the the musical situation you're in.
• 17:35
  Steve: And you you want to be more accurate to what's happening with the music.
• 17:39
  Steve: This is more of a rock, blues, hard rock, you know, harder blues kind of situation that you could do this in.
• 17:47
  Steve: There are other situations too, but you have to be you have to be smart about this.
• 17:51
  Steve: So when I was a kid, I never did anything that was outside the lines.
• 17:54
  Steve: I never colored outside the lines.
• 17:56
  Steve: I did exactly what I was supposed to do.
• 17:57
  Steve: When I started learning more about this and learning that the lines a lot of times are very blurred, there's a lot of different things that you can do depending on your delivery and what feels comfortable to you.
• 18:08
  Steve: And again, the situation.
• 18:10
  Steve: You could do a pinch harmonic, Ryan, anytime.
• 18:16
  Steve: You know, again, you can do whatever you want anytime you want.
• 18:19
  Steve: That's the fun of this.
• 18:20
  Steve: Chuck says, these bending progressions you are teaching us are working on my Gibson Les Paul.
• 18:25
  Steve: That's great.
• 18:25
  Steve: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, is it it doesn't matter what you're doing it on.
• 18:29
  Steve: It's just understand that we've talked about a few different things today.
• 18:32
  Steve: Don't feel like you have to do it all.
• 18:34
  Steve: And don't try and do it all fast.
• 18:35
  Steve: The goal is to absorb something and really make it authentic.
• 18:40
  Steve: When you go to deliver it, you feel good.
• 18:47
  Steve: With that, that again, the approach that you're using.
• 18:51
  Steve: If you have to plant yourself for a second on that seven to get ready for the little slide, don't be in a hurry.
• 18:57
  Steve: It's okay.
• 18:57
  Steve: You can and then dip into the slide afterwards, right?
• 19:03
  Steve: Or maybe that's the only thing you walk away with, but that's okay.
• 19:09
  Steve: Just get used to seeing it, understanding it, how it's working, how it doesn't fit, but still functions.
• 19:16
  Steve: That way, when you get done with the lick, you can always drop into something that does make sense to you, you see, and then continue on your way.
• 19:27
  Steve: So, anyway, you guys all have a great uh weekend and um stay positive, keep practicing.
• 19:34
  Steve: And again, if you're ever looking for bumping up your game on a serious level, head over to Guitar Zoom, check out the Guitar Zoom Academy.
• 19:40
  Steve: You and I can talk to each other and talk about what it is, how it works, see if it fits you, and all that kind of stuff.
• 19:46
  Steve: All right.
• 19:46
  Steve: So God bless, take care, everybody, and uh, we'll talk to you soon, okay?
• 19:50
  Steve: Bye, everybody.