Vibrato and Bending

A core part of guitar playing in this style is Vibrato and Bending, Guitarists often use these techniques to express the emotions of the song. The genre blues rock often means the guitarists are trying to be dramatic and emotional they do this through large bends and lots of vibrato. I first decided to work on these techniques that are very important to guitarists in this style by choosing the song “Still got the blues” by Gary Moore. This song heavily relies on both these techniques to create the correct atmosphere and really makes the song standout from the others. I created a couple of exercises on bending mostly trying to improve keeping the bends in-tune and making sure they hit the correct note. I did this by practicing bending up to a note with a tuner next to me and making sure the tuner said I was in tune and hitting the correct note. This helped me gain experience in hitting the correct note but it also showed me when I was flat or sharp so I could practice adjusting if I hit the wrong note which will help me when I play the set live in case of mistakes on the day. For vibrato I did a couple of classical guitar exercises I learnt at school when I did the ABRSM grades. The exercise is doing the major scale up and down with varying degrees of vibrato each time. This is so you can get used to using vibrato in different scenarios. The next way I practiced was research into how Gary Moore used these techniques. I mostly focused on live performances as this is what I want to work on getting better at these techniques live. I first watched and noted how he achieved the sound I was looking to achieve. I then played along with the tracks to make sure I matched the note and feel he had. Then I did it with a backing track without the guitar recording it to make sure I hit the right note and matched the feeling. Overall, I feel like my feel for vibrato and bending has come along a long way throughout this process and is something I will continue to develop throughout my playing career.

Practice bending with a tuner

My Practice playing along with Moore

Vibrato practice

An example of what this looked like with the band