Unison Bend Lick

Welcome to JamPlay, this is Brad and I’m going to teach you some more Blues Licks and you can use this in Rock and Roll. It’s the blues or pentatonic scale in the key of A minor. Anyway, these are going to be some bends and they are going to be pretty cool. Anyway, there’s going to be two different ways to bend here and this is also called like a unison bend. Anyway what you’re going to do is you’re going to go down to the 5th fret with your first finger here on the 2nd string and hold the note. Go to the 3rd string on the 7th fret and hold that one with your 3rd finger. So anyway, the first note is held with 1st finger, 2nd note is held with the 3rd finger. Okay what we’re going to do here is use your second finger as reinforcement on the 3rd string because that’s where you’re going to be doing your bend. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to strike both notes together on the 3rd and 2nd string. And at the same time, you’re going to bend up the 3rd but leave the 2nd string where it’s at. So this is a little bit tricky because sometimes you want to bend both fingers and the trick is getting the 3rd finger and 2nd finger to bend up and leaving the 1st finger in the same position. What it’s going to sound like is this. [Demonstration] Now one thing that I forgot to tell you is the 3rd string is going to be bend up one whole step to this note. And you notice it’s the same note as on the 2nd string. So it’s give you a nice winding sound. Okay, now let’s just do that and then kind of hold it. [Demonstration] The trick is getting it in tune or getting the tone right. Once you’ve found that you’ve got it. Anyway, I’m going to show you the next old way to do that. This is a little bit different. You go to the 5th fret on the 1st string and hold that with your first finger. And what I do is take my third finger and go all the way down to the 8th fret on the 2nd string using my second finger as a way to reinforce it or anchor the third finger. Anyway, what it is the first note is an A here and what you’re going to do is basically the same idea, you leave your first finger where it’s at and bend the third finger one whole step up to match that note. And this is what it’s going to sound like. [Demonstration] And you can put a little bit of vibrato at the end of it. But at first, try to hit the note, listening, and trying to get its pitch. Okay, now the next part of it is we’re going to do a unison bend on the first one where we went on the 5th fret on the 2nd string and the seventh fret on the 3rd, and we’re going to bend up and then back down. [Demonstration] Now the next one is the same idea of a back down only with the second--secondly you’re doing it on the 5th and 8th fret, 1st and 2nd string. Okay try not to let the other strings ring. Maybe do a little palm muting at the same time.