Chords for Steve Vai Guitar Lesson - Bending Notes - Alien Guitar Secrets: Passion & Warfare

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Your intonation will also be very important when you find yourself doing things like bending notes.
And bending notes is a study unto itself.
And I've spent many hours focusing on bending notes.
And usually there's a couple of things I could just point out that you may want to be aware of.
When you bend a note, _ if you're bending two frets, I always recommend coming down on the strings like this.
If you find yourself playing the guitar like this, you're going to be really limited later.
Because there's no real_
I mean, this kind of way.
There's no real dexterity in that.
Some people play like this with their hand like this, and you can get [Em] a lot of _ dexterity that way. _
I usually do this with an occasional that.
But this is comfortable to me.
I feel like I've got _ stability.
And if I [D] bend notes, _ _ it feels really good to _ have this leverage right here and this kind of action.
A lot of people, students I see bending notes, they use their fingers to bend notes.
And it's squirrely.
It's not consistent.
If you're using your fingers, _ it's very hard to _ _ get to the note.
But if you're using this kind of action in your wrist_
_ [A] See, I'm not pushing with my fingers.
I'm like this.
[B] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
Same [Ab] thing with pulling.
_ I seem to be spitting all over the place.
That happens when I start bending [Em] notes.
[A] So _ [Em] _ it's this action you're looking for.
And your intonation is so brutally important when you're bending notes.
And there's a couple of great exercises you can try.
If you sit for an hour a day for a few weeks, a month, and focus entirely on bending notes_ _
You're going to get very bored in the beginning.
But you've got to push through it and find the excitement in it.
Every time you hit the right note, it's a victory.
So one thing to do if you're going to focus on doing nothing but bending notes_
There's hundreds of permeations.
There's just the very conventional two-fret [Bb] kind of a bend.
[Abm] _
_ _ [B] _ [Abm] _ _ _ [A] And when I do that, it's basically three fingers [Db] down.
And _ _ _ [A]
that's the note you want, two [Db] frets higher.
_ _ [A] So a great exercise, if you just sit for an hour and hit a note, [Abm] _ [G] and then bend to it_
_ [Abm] _ _ _ _ _ [N] _ [Abm] _
_ _ _ _ [E] _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ _ _ [Am] You'd be surprised [A] how hard that is for some people.
It was very hard for me for a long time.
And still is occasionally. _ _
But you definitely want to get your intonation on when you're bending [C] notes.
And practice all over the place.
_ _ Because low [Ab] strings on the guitar are different than high strings.
And if you have a whammy bar that's floating like mine, the whole feel and tension of stretching a note_
All bets are [B] off.
You have to use your ear.
And then [Am]
you can experiment with bending one fret.
[Eb] _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Ab] _ _ [Cm] _ _ [F] _
_ [Ab] _ With every finger.
[E] So the _ _ combinations are endless, how you can practice _ bending.
I would go as far as bending things three, four, and five frets.
[C] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _
_ [Ab] _ _ [E] _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ [A] _ _ _ _
Oops, that's a tough one.
Maybe I'll use a whammy bar to help.
_ This [F] _ _ [A] is _ _ [Eb] really helpful [Db] when you want the guitar to sing.
Because the combination of playing high [E] notes with good intonation and _ [B] bending_
[N] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Gm] _ [Abm] _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ [Db] _ [D] _ [G] _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ [Abm] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Em] _ _ [E] _ _ [B] _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Ab] Playing [Bb] up high on the neck and stretching notes_
Very few people really know how to make the guitar sing _ beautifully in the high [E] register when stretching notes.
[B] _ [N] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ [D] _ [N] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ [A] _ [G] _ _