Week 2: bends and vibrato, in tune
Week two of a 32-week guitar practice path: bending accurately and holding a note with deliberate vibrato — the half-step blues bend or the whole-step rock bend.
- Week
- 2 of 32
- Days
- 7
- Played as
- blues or rock
Week one gave you a shape. This week gives it a voice, and both tracks agree that the two techniques doing that work are the bend and the vibrato. Both are pitch-accuracy problems wearing the disguise of physical ones.
The difference is distance and attitude. Blues leans on the half step from the ♭3 toward the major 3rd, deliberately landing between the two rather than on either. Rock goes a full tone and needs to be more accurate rather than less, because distortion exposes pitch mercilessly. Either way, check the bend against the target played straight before you trust it.
Blues treatment
Bends (♭3 into the 3) and a wide, singing vibrato, both in tune
Week one gave you a shape. This week gives it a voice. The two techniques that make a guitar sound like it is singing rather than typing are the bend and the vibrato, and both are pitch-accuracy problems disguised as physical ones.
The bend that matters most in blues is the ♭3 pushed up toward the major 3rd — C toward C♯ in this key. Sit on the ♭3 straight and it sounds minor; push it and it sounds like a voice. The discipline is checking it: sound the target as a fretted note before you bend to it, then compare the two. Most out-of-tune bends are short, not sharp. Vibrato is the harder half — slow and wide reads as confident, fast and narrow reads as nervous — and it should be a movement you start and stop deliberately, not a wobble that happens because you ran out of ideas.
The daily session · ~25 min
- Warm upHands + last week's box4 min
- Box 1, aim at the bend spotsFind the targets4 min
- Bends & vibratoThe blues voice6 min
- One bent note per phraseMake it count6 min
- Jam, 12-bar blues in APut it together5 min
Check yourself
- Bend the ♭3 up to the major 3rd, then check it against the 3rd played straight. Are you arriving, or stopping short?
- Hold one note for four beats with even vibrato you started on purpose.
- Play a chorus of the 12-bar with exactly one bent note per phrase, no more.
Reference
Rock treatment
Wide, whole-step bends and an aggressive vibrato
Rock bends are wider than blues bends — usually a whole step rather than a half — and they need to be more accurate, not less, because distortion exposes pitch mercilessly. A bend that lands a quarter-tone flat sounds like a mistake through a clean amp and like a siren through a cranked one.
Check every bend against the target played straight. Use three fingers behind the bend and drive it from the wrist, never one finger from the knuckle. Vibrato under gain wants to be wide and deliberate; a narrow nervous shake disappears entirely once the amp is compressing. One big bend per phrase is plenty — it is the exclamation point, and a sentence with six of them means nothing.
The daily session · ~25 min
- Warm upHands + last week's box4 min
- Box 1, find the bend spotsKnow the target pitch4 min
- Wide bends & vibratoThe rock voice6 min
- One big bend per phraseThe exclamation point6 min
- Jam, minor rock vampPut it together5 min
Check yourself
- Bend a whole step and check it against the target fretted note. Arriving or short?
- Hold a bent note for four beats with vibrato applied on purpose at the top of the bend.
- Play a chorus with exactly one big bend in it.
Reference
How the week runs
Whichever accent you pick, the material stays the same for all 7 days and the tempo and intent move. Day one takes it slowly, day two chases clean notes, day three brings it to target tempo and into the jam, day four pushes past comfortable, and day five drops back to tempo to record and listen. Days six and seven are yours.
You can switch accent any day without losing your place — it is the same week either way, so week 2 means the same thing in both.