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Take 5: Blues Bends

Accelerated Technique-Specific Study Program for Blues Bends on Guitar

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Take 5: Blues Bends
Jeff McErlain

Jeff McErlain

Educator

blues, blues-rock, rock

Genres

About this course

Guitar is one of the only instruments that you can actually perform a bend on and the technique is inherent in all styles of blues and rock guitar playing, Bends allow players to develop their own voice while adding a vocal quality to their playing. It’s one of the most expressive techniques on the guitar and is certainly an essential skill that every blues guitarist needs to perfect.

This Blues Bends edition of Take 5 from Jeff McErlain is an accelerated curriculum designed to help get your bending technique up to snuff quickly without having to struggle through a lot of tedious exercises.

You’ll start the course with a quick primer during which Jeff will introduce you to best approaches for executing whole-step bends, minor third bends, half-step bends, pre-bends, double stop bends, and a few vibrato techniques, which are commonly used with bends.

Jeff will then guide you through 5 blues bending performance studies, progressing from basic to more advanced applications of the technique.

Jeff will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way.  You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the Performance Studies. Plus, Jeff includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own. In addition, you’ll be able to loop or slow down any of the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.

Grab your guitar and let’s Take 5 with Jeff McErlain!

About the Take 5 Series

TrueFire’s Take 5 courses feature an accelerated curricular approach to help students get up to speed quickly on a particular style or technique. Each Take 5 course starts with a primer on the particular style or technique and then guides the student through 5 performance studies progressing from basic applications to more sophisticated approaches.

Jeff McErlain's Preferred Gear

Below is a list of Jeff McErlain's preferred gear including guitars, amps, pedals, accessories, and more. What you see in Jeff's lessons may or may not be this actual gear, but if you are trying to capture Jeff's sound and tone, the gear listed below is recommended by Jeff and it's a great place to start!

Guitars

Amps

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Accessories & More

What you'll learn

  • Perform bend and release techniques with pull-offs
  • Create microtonal 'blue note' effects between fretted pitches
  • Mute unwanted strings while bending
  • Control vibrato on bent notes
  • Develop proper bending technique for blues guitar
Release date: 08/06/2018 • 1h 22m runtime
intermediatelate intermediateguitarelectric guitartechniquesoloing
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Sample lessons
Level 4: Blues Bends
Level 4: Blues Bends
Overview
Level 4: Blues Bends
Level 4: Blues Bends
Performance
Level 4: Blues Bends
Level 4: Blues Bends
Breakdown

What's included

19 lessons • 5 charts • 5 Jam Tracks

Take 5: Blues Bends
Hi, I'm Jeff McErlain and welcome to Take 5: Blues Bends. Bending strings is one of the most important techniques on the guitar. It's also one of the only instruments that you can actually bend on. String bending is also inherent in blues and rock guitar playing, and is essential to performing the genre legitimately.

In this course, I'll walk you though the technique of bending and the most common bends used in blues guitar. I build up the examples in levels from easiest to more difficult. That being said, they are somewhat difficult on some level. All of the performance studies are tabbed and notated and you'll get all the jam tracks to work with on your own. You can also loop and slow down the videos to work at your own pace. Grab your guitar and let's get bending!
Blues Bends
Bends and vibrato are parts of a whole, as they're basically they same technique. I would highly recommend practicing them individually.

When practicing bends, as I describe in the video, fret the note you wish to bend, then fret the note you wish to bend to. Get both of those pitches in your ears, and do that a few times. Then, bend the first note until it sound the same as the 2nd note you fretted earlier. Go back and forth between these two and pay close attention to the pitch.

Also, really concentrate on proper left hand position like I have described in the video. To bend strings well, you ned some good left hand strength and control. The technique is extremely important!
Level 1: Blues Bends
Let's check out a slow blues in A using two specific whole step bends found in the Am pentatonic scale: the D to E, which is the 4th to the 5th, and G to A, which is the b7 to the root. These two notes are a great way to get into bending and outlining the changes on an A blues as well.

An A minor pentatonic scale is spelled A-C-D-E-G, as you can see the scale is made up of whole steps and minor thirds. The two whole step bends we'll be working on are the most common bends in the pentatonic scale.
Level 1: Blues Bends
Bending is much more demanding and difficult than it may seem. I've also found slow bends to be more difficult to play in tune than quick bends. I think it leaves us sometimes too much time to think about the note and we question the pitch.

So, a lot of this is based upon ear training of course, and muscle memory. Muscle memory is extremely important and oftentimes a little easier to rely upon and then your ear in certain situations. By practicing bending, our body remembers how much pressure it takes to bend the string to the pitch that we're looking for. It's important to pay attention to the way the bend feels.
Level 1: Blues Bends
In this exercise, I'm using whole step bends as we discussed earlier and I'm also outlining the chord changes with those bends. My first chord is A7, and I'm bending the G to the A, which is the b7 to the root of the A7 chord. A-C#-E-G, then I bend the D to the E, giving me the 5th of the A7 chord.

On the D7 chord, I can still use the A bend and release the E to the D, both of which are part of the D7 chord: D F# A C.

On the E7 chord, E-G#-B-D, I can use the D to E bend. So really, using those bends I can outline the changes in a blues.
Level 2: Blues Bends
In this study, we'll take a look at the two minor 3rd bends in the pentatonic scale. One is the minor 3rd between the root and b3rd, and the the other is between the 5th and b7th.

These bends are exceptionally cool, and we hear guys like Clapton, Page, and Gilmour use them all the time. One of the real kings of the bend is the legendary Albert King. I'm also tweaking the b3rd a little, and this is easily the MOST IMPORTANT bend to master, because it ain't the blues without it!
Level 2: Blues Bends
One thing about a blues this slow is that it's really easy to rush, so be aware of that when working through it.

It's important to record yourself as well and listen back to the bends and phrasing. As any guitar player can tell you, what you thought you played isn't always what you actually played! It's an interesting phenomena and can be very frustrating. You think, "Man that sounded good!" Then on the listen back, "What the heck was I thinking? That sounded terrible!" It's a burden we all bear! Anyway, record yourself and listen back critically, don't beat yourself up about it (which is often very difficult to do). Just try it again and focus in little improvements.

+ 12 more lessons

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Reviews

12 results

brosblues

Verified buyer

09/14/26

Another useful course from Jeff Mac!

As with many other Jeff McErlain course that I own, this course contains lots of useful, well-explained information applicable to my playing. The performance pieces and jam tracks are also praiseworthy.

JamminJamesLee

Verified buyer

12/14/24

Check it out!

Great in-depth look at often overlooked fundamentals!

Nimzo2005

06/25/24

Great course

I love this course. Jeff is a great teacher. In this course you are going to learn bends (of course), vibrato and many useful and tasteful licks. Many thanks Jeff and TF

PaulJT

Verified buyer

04/30/21

it is what it is - a review on bending techniques and styles

This is geared more to the beginner enthusiast. But, I do practice Jeff's exercises with my acoustic and transfer to the electric from time to time just to get that proper feel down. The level 4 exercise (ala E.Clapton / P.Kossoff / Free variation) is really inspiring and he keened in on the nuances of the bending in the 60s era style of bending. It interesting how jeff also puts a spotlight on vibrato by saying it can act as rough measure regarding maturity of a guitarist. Later he discusses the pull / release techniques along with the wrist-twist skill for the big vibrato.

SongAlligator

Verified buyer

04/26/21

Great Riffs, Tabs riddled with errors/omissions

The riffs and licks are great and the follow-along tabs match the music pretty well. The downloadable guitar pro tabs are not usable. The instructor gives some good insights into string bending, but the explanations are ad libbed and sometimes ramble on, while omitting explanations. For example; when does he choose to use the blunt end of his pick? For the segment explanations (breakdowns), parts are omitted or played differently than the performances.

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