JFR Lesson of the week

The technique lessons featured on this page are designed to be for Electric guitar. Most of the lessons covered here however will transfer to acoustic without any issue. This lesson page will be updated as often as possible. The other pages on JFRocks and JFRocks UNplugged keep me rather busy and I try to keep all technique lessons to CD ROM. What this page will do a lot of the time is expand upon lessons covered on various CD ROMs. If this is the case the Category below will state which CD ROM the lesson is expanding on. I hope you enjoy these mini lessons as I call them and remember all lessons from the past are located on the Lesson Archives page.

*Remember Effect suggestions are my suggestions for the home player. Usually suggestions are geared for a low budget.

*Clicking the link to an effect will bring to a page that details the settings and specific model of effect I'm using.

Lesson Features

The song track

The Jam along track

The Video Guitar Lesson

Lesson MP3 song track

JAm TRack for this lesson

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This Lesson's difficulty level 1-10 scale

For this lesson we're going to look at Bending. Granted, most people know how to bend, but knowing how to bend is only part of it. There is a little bit more to the bending story than that.

You have to understand, what to bend and when to bend it and how what you choose to bend is going to come across feel wise to your listening audience. You also need to look at things you can do to a note after it's bent to add feel to it. There is nothing worse than a stale bent note with no feel behind it.

We're going to set this lesson to a short example. It's a take off on the Beatles, "While my guitar gently weeps". This is one of my favorite solos, however I'm not doing the actual solo and I've altered the chords under it slightly. So I'll note for the record that this is NOT a note for note anything and is totally made up by me in the theme of the Beatles track.

Enjoy the lesson and try to practice some of the techniques I cover on the video, but also try to understand that the notes you choose to use as you go to notes, are really in a lot of ways what will define your style.

E__________________________________12_13_15_17___________
B_________________________12_13_15_______________________
G___________________12_14________________________________
D__________12_14_15______________________________________
A_12_14_15_______________________________________________
E________________________________________________________

Minor scale with a Major 6th. The 6th's or F#'s in Yellow are what make this scale Dorian.

E__________________________________12_14_15_17___________
B_________________________12_13_15_______________________
G___________________12_14________________________________
D__________12_14_16______________________________________
A_12_14_15_______________________________________________
E________________________________________________________

Minor scale with a Major 7th. The 7th's or G#'s in Yellow are what make this scale Harmonic minor.

E__________________________________12_13_16_17___________
B_________________________12_13_15_______________________
G___________________13_14________________________________
D__________12_14_15______________________________________
A_12_14_15_______________________________________________
E________________________________________________________

As I mentioned on the video, the best way to improvise leads is to know the notes that make up the chords you're using. Below in our track lesson I'll tab out both the chords and the leads. Take careful note of the pitches in the chords and compare them to the scales written above to get an idea of how I used them. No lesson online or on paper though will ever take the place of you just tinkering around with the guitar and experimenting. That's the best learning there is and I strongly encourage it.

While my guitar gently bends / sample track

Written by: Jeff Fiorentino

Performed by: Jeff Fiorentino

Engineered by: Kelly Ross

I'm only going to tab each chord 1 time. X's will indicate the strumming pattern. I kept it simple as it's just there to give us something to solo over.

E_0_______________0______________________________1_______________
B_1_______________1_______________3______________1_______________
G_2_______________0_______________2______________2_______________
D_2_______________2_______________0______________3_______________
A_0__x__x_x_x_x___x_______________x______________3_______________
E_________________3__x__x_x_x_x___2__x__x_x_x_x__1_x__x_x_x_x____

E_0_______________3_______________2______________0_______________
B_1_______________3_______________3______________0_______________
G_2_______________0_______________2______________1_______________
D_2_______________0_______________0__x__x_x_x_x__2_______________
A_0__x__x_x_x_x___x______________________________2_______________
E_________________3__x__x_x_x_x__________________0_x__x_x_x_x____

E_0_______________3_______________0______________0_____________0__
B_1_______________3_______________1______________0_____________1__
G_2_______________0_______________0______________1_____________2__
D_2_______________0_______________2______________2_____________2__
A_0__x__x_x_x_x___x_______________3__x__x_x_x_x__2_____________0__
E_________________3__x__x_x_x_x__________________0_x__x_x_x_x_____

The idea here is to bend and twist the notes as much you like. Add lots of vibrato or just a little. Every player will interpret these leads differently. There is a jam track available for this lesson so feel free to insert your own leads in place of mine. That after all is what these lessons are all about. First though, if you're a beginner or new to soloing outside the Blues box, try to analyze what I've done here. It's really very simple and most of the notes if not all of them can be found in the chords we're soloing over which are tabbed above.

See video for added help with all of this. Remember that only notes in Bold are picked. Notes in italic are either held over or are just hammered on or pulled off to.

E_____________15^1_!stop dead________
B__13___________________________
G_____14~~______________________
D_______________________________
A_______________________________
E_______________________________

E__________________________________________________________________________
B__________________________________________________________________________
G_12-14^^1.4 slight underbend_~~>release_14-12-14^^1.4 slight underbend_~~>release_14-12-14^1~>release___
D__________________________________________________________________________
A__________________________________________________________________________
E__________________________________________________________________________

E__________________________15________13_____13_15^1>slight release~__13_15_13_16_15_13_15_
B_13_15^1~~>release_15-13-15^1~____15^1~_____15^1________________________________________
G__________________________________________________________________________________
D__________________________________________________________________________________
A__________________________________________________________________________________
E__________________________________________________________________________________

E__15^1>slight release~____15^1>rel 15______________________________________________
B________________13__________12_13^1>rel 13__10_12^1/2>rel 12__8_10^1_8^1_6^3/4~~__
G_________________________________________________________________________
D_________________________________________________________________________
A_________________________________________________________________________
E_________________________________________________________________________

E__________________________________________________
B__________________________________________________
G____________________12-14_14---16_16--17_17--19_______
D______________12-14________________________________
A_10--12_12--14______________________________________
E__________________________________________________

E______________17_________17__________17_______17_____17_____17__20^1~~__
B___________17_____20^1~___________17____20^1~____20^1____20^1____________
G__19__19^1___________________19^1_______________________________________
D_______________________________________________________________________
A_______________________________________________________________________
E_______________________________________________________________________