Perfecting the accuracy of your bends.

[Gifthorse]

Practicing bends on an acoustic is for those who want to develop hand problems.

Of course that isn't what I mean't.

 

I mean when you practice guitar, practicing on acoustic only strengthens your playing, and your hands, so bends are more feasable on electric.

[Gruupi]

Bending isn't as much finger memory as just developing good pitch. Some people get this quicker and more naturaly than others. You have to develop your ear. It may take years to get where you want, but you have to take the time.

 

Elwoods tip can help. By taping yourself you can listen more objectively. If you can't hear that your off pitch then you will never be able to bend in pitch.

[Squ]

Originally posted by Gruupi:

Bending isn't as much finger memory as just developing good pitch.

I'd say it's a little of both, if you want a screaming note NOW, it won't work out well if you haven't done it enough times to at least get real close instantly.

[Gruupi]

Yeah, Squ thats true. I guess I am saying you can't get to that point without the ear thing working. It is certainly something that just takes lots of work. At some point the finger memory does become second nature, but its still all based on hearing the note to begin with.

[D_dup3]

One reason that this isn't so much a matter of "finger memory" is that every fret position requires a different degree of deflection from the string's line.

This does become a built-in memory to a degree but it's not really something that any single distance covers.

[Dr. Ellwood]

Originally posted by flagshipmile:

Practicing bends on an acoustic is for those who want to develop hand problems.

Of course that isn't what I mean't.

 

I mean when you practice guitar, practicing on acoustic only strengthens your playing, and your hands, so bends are more feasable on electric.

Very true words there FlagShip, but only one caution, we have to remember that some techniques we use on acoustic cannot translate to electric playing. Especially in finite,instant tone recognition, that is ear/finger instant adjustment for tone or vibratto. Bends on electric requite instant adjustment or correction for tone, SO one of the mechanical things we we do is bend at a certain rate, and a good part of this is based on our learned reaction to string gage. Because string gages/mechanical forces are usually much different between acoustic and electric characteristics, we should rehearse bends and finite elements on the type of instruments that we most often play.

[Ricardo.]

Of course, doing things that people believe can't be done usually produces good result One of my favorite things to throw into my acoustic playing is the extensive use of pre-bends in blues licks/licking.

 

How much of a risk is there of hand problems developing due to bending acoustic/stiffer strings? I assumed it was just a strength issue...