The ♭3 bend
Push the ♭3 up toward the major 3rd and resolve to the root — the sound people mean when they say blues.
- Style
- blues
- Written in
- A
- Feel
- shuffle
- Tempo
- ♩=84
- Length
- 1 bar
Numbers are the order you play them, so notes sharing a number sound together. Drop the tempo until it is clean, then bring it back up.
Written in A, and the writing below describes it there. Move it to another key and the shape does not change, only where its root sits — which is the difference between knowing a lick and knowing a fret number.
- 1C · string 3, fret 5bend to fret 6
- 2C · string 3, fret 5
- 3A · string 4, fret 7
- 4G · string 4, fret 5
- 5A · string 4, fret 7vibrato
The C on the G string at the 5th fret is the ♭3. Bend it a half step toward C♯ and you land in the crack between minor and major, which is where this music lives. Do not overshoot into a clean major 3rd; the point is the tension of arriving just about there.
Check it before you trust it: fret C♯ at the 6th and listen to it, then bend and see how close you came. Then let it fall to the A on the D string so the phrase has somewhere to land.
Where this fits
This comes out of week 2 of the blues path — bends and vibrato, in tune. The week is where you learn the device; this page is where you come back to it once the week has rolled over.