Andy Timmons on Targeting Chord Tones with String Bends

MELODIC MUSE by Andy Timmons

THE BENDS, PART 4

String bending offers us guitarists a highly effective way to evoke a wide range of sounds and emotions from our instrument and emulate some of the qualities of the human voice, such as adding vibrato to a note, or seamlessly sliding, or gliding, from one pitch up or down to another, what is known as glissando. All of our favorite players use bending as an essential expressive tool when soloing. In this fourth installment examining this highly effective and useful technique, Andy Timmons plays through a 24-bar minor blues progression in the key of C# minor, touching on many different approaches to string bending.