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Here’s one I haven’t heard much about…string bending.
When I was a kid and played my Fender Telecaster (it was a 1976 red one), we bent strings like crazy. In flamenco and classical I don’t hear much talk about it. What’s interesting is, I started working on a Moraito Solea that has all kind of string bending in it.
Just for fun, I played a bit of Solea and kept track of the number of times I bent the strings. On the attached file I counted six different bends, mostly on the ending phrasings. Is this something we all do subconsciously, or is it a carry over form my steel string days, or am I just moving to a new level? Have I been in the dark on this and everyone has been doing it and didn’t tell me? It sounds like a conspiracy to me!
I do not have any flamenco literature, method book or instruction video that mentions bending.
I have been sitting next to Sabicas, Carlos Montoya, and Juan Serrano, as well as many other flamenco guitarists. This would not be at a show but in private. The only person I have seen bend strings while playing flamenco guitar is Juan Serrano. In fact I think he does in on one of his video instruction tapes – I will have to look around for it.
Somehow I do not think it is a common technique in flamenco guitar work, but why not use it?
What works best low tension, extra high tension or something in between?
A technique I use from Moron de la Frontera technique is to slide within the fret, and to lower frets. When you do it within the fret you get a different voicing as if the guitar is singing. This can be ascending or descending notes. It seems like bending would be similar but yet give a different end result.
I think some of us do it without really thinking about it. In my case it's very subtle. If I think about it, I can actually hear it. I believe I feel the bend more then hear it, but I know for a fact that it’s changing the voicing of the music. In the clip I posted, the first bend is a slight vibrato, the rest are slight bends up or down.
I too bent string on my SG like crazy, a whole tone most off time. Now, I bend a little back and forth occasionally, what we called "tremelo" in the electric world. You do have a distinctive style on those arpeggios. Nice.
Because you can from a rock background I think you can relate to what I am talking about.
I think my arpeggios sound the way they do, due the small bends that are taking place without me even thinking about it. No two will be the same. In fact I didn't even give it much thought until yesterday.
I use it a lot - mainly for a vibrato effect (although I use a classical vibrato as well). Mind you, this is when I'm soloing along with my backing, I don't conciously do it if I'm playing straight flamenco toque.
Another thing I do a lot is play a note and slide it rapidly up a tone then back down again which I guess is similar to what Tom's talking about. PDL and Tonino Baliardo are very fond of that one.
You can't get a tone wide bluesy bend-release out of a nylon strung guitar, so I guess its the flamenco players equivalent.