Bending up or Down or a String

[DeafBlind Renee]

I have seen the term bend down a very small number of times, and it slightly confused me, but I let it go, since it didn't seem to happen often or make much difference. One person did say that he bent down sometimes when it was easier to do so for him without disturbing other strings. Ok, but today, in going through Johnathon's class, he specifically said bending up 1/2 to the Gilmour note when on the low e string and then bending down 1/2 when doing the note just outside the pentatonic scale on the G string. Does direction of bending matter in terms of getting the right pitch or is it just easier in certain places to do it one way or the other? I could see high E and low e bending down on high E and up on low e because you don't want the string to come off the fretboard, so is that really on the only reason, or is there a little more to it?

[Alan Desmond]

12 hours ago, DeafBlind Renee said:

I have seen the term bend down a very small number of times, and it slightly confused me, but I let it go, since it didn't seem to happen often or make much difference. One person did say that he bent down sometimes when it was easier to do so for him without disturbing other strings. Ok, but today, in going through Johnathon's class, he specifically said bending up 1/2 to the Gilmour note when on the low e string and then bending down 1/2 when doing the note just outside the pentatonic scale on the G string. Does direction of bending matter in terms of getting the right pitch or is it just easier in certain places to do it one way or the other? I could see high E and low e bending down on high E and up on low e because you don't want the string to come off the fretboard, so is that really on the only reason, or is there a little more to it?

Hi Renee, ive seem people talking about string bending myself  its most common to bend up and most effective mid span of the strings and usually the bottom 4. But if you want to bend the low E or A string they're much thicker and resistant, guess its just more convenient if needed to bend down. I dont tend to do that technique myself.  I saw your other post about fleetwood mac in the ideas and will see if Brock can help.

[DeafBlind Renee]

10 hours ago, Alan Desmond said:

Hi Renee, ive seem people talking about string bending myself  its most common to bend up and most effective mid span of the strings and usually the bottom 4. But if you want to bend the low E or A string they're much thicker and resistant, guess its just more convenient if needed to bend down. I dont tend to do that technique myself.  I saw your other post about fleetwood mac in the ideas and will see if Brock can help.

Thanks, Alan. I definitely agee that bending the low E or A is difficult and bending down would make sense, there, but I don't do that, either. For now, I will just take it that bending up is most common, but some bend down when it is easier, and not gather that there are times that you need to bend down to get to a certain pitch and the other way would be the opposite pitch. I hadn't thought that, but his statement their specifically like that on the middle area of the fretboard and saying bend down made me wonder if I had missed something. Again, thanks for answering.

[Alan Desmond]

Hi Renee again, i'm a professional engineer  so in my business I deal with frequency and vibration issues. So mechanically it doesnt matter whether you bend strings up or down the acoustic effect is the same. It just comes down to what is most logical and comfortable to achieve the desired result.