Bending Rules Combining Bending & Tapping

For the final instalment of this series, Guthrie is looking at various ways to combine string bending with picking-hand tapping techniques, with some typically surprising results.

- Guthrie

Some of the following licks are decidedly unconventional and there is much to explain so, without further ado, let’s just dive straight in and have a look at Lick 7. The core of this lick is a simple repeating three-note pattern that can be executed using the following steps: 1) Tap the third string at the 12th fret; 2) Pull-off to the 7th fret and immediately bend the string up one tone (preferably by bending downwards towards the floor – in this particular instance, I find that bending in this way facilitates a little extra speed); 3) Simultaneously release the bend and hammer-on at the 9th fret.

This is essentially a fancier version of the Jan Hammer-esque idea, which we first encountered last month. The new developments here are the addition of the tapped note and also the fact that the lick is played as a series of 16th notes: this four notes-per-beat spacing effectively displaces the feel of the basic three-note pattern each time it recurs, adding more rhythmic interest.