Hey Jens, do you have a favorite metal band? Much of the reason I watch your videos is so I can add some jazz spiciness to the strange soup I like to call "my style". I'll likely never go out of my way to listen to polka or country (truthfully I usually avoid those genres except for Johnny Cash lol) but playing in these styles is pretty fun. Thank you for another awesome (and thought-provoking) video! ✌
To your point on equipment, the wound G string vs plain G has a large impact. It is really hard - and slow - to bend a wound G, which takes a key string out of the mix.
Very interesting topic. I agree that bending and bebop is not the most natural combination. Gypsy jazz it can work through. Django loved a good half step bend
Hi - a blues based player here who occasionally tips a small toe into the shallow reaches of jazz. I think the number of notes played is a huge factor. When I’m play scales with more notes than the stripped down pentatonics that I’m used to, I find bending ceases to be an option but when I jump back into a pentatonic then all of a sudden there’s space for bends to come along too. Tempo speed is also a factor. Plus theres the strong stylistic association of bends with the Blues. I often practice playing a pentatonic scale without bends and its interesting to observe how I play alternative melodic lines that I wouldn’t normally play and sit outside the blues style and feel.
On the topic of gear, maybe it isn't the limitations of guitar - but the limitations of saxophones and trumpets. They are more traditional melodic instruments in jazz, so perhaps they've influenced guitar
I think a big influence on the lack of bends in jazz guitar, comes from some of the early pioneers trying imitate other instruments and the jazz guitar “sound” has evolved from there. Also how could you do a video on guitar bends and not talk about Django Reinhardt?? 😮 great video! 🙌👍
i think vibrato is synonymous with good taste and all the other attributes you mention, not bending by itself. Also, syncopation and playing in time with a swinging groove is essential to all other western styles, I disagree with the distinction of being attributed to jazz only or mainly. A fan of your channel even if I'm not a jazz guitarist. Keep up the good work!
Right! Metalhead here, and big bends are a bit out of favor in modern metal (if you do it a lot people tell to you stop the boomer bends), but if you're gonna swear off hammer-ons and pull-offs and vibratos and pinch harmonics, might as well play a synth. Light touches are a big part of the expressiveness of flamenco and fado, too. 😉🤘
😀😃😄This is so informative. Years ago I was taking lessons from a fairly reputable jazz player ( Carlton Kitto...a few clips of him on U-Tube) I was already playing in a Rock band so I did a lot of bending. Once during a lesson instead of sliding up two notes I took it upon myself to bend to the note. Carlton who was a purist went livid I did not understand why till I watched this video, Ha Ha. We all loved Carlton though and he -like you- loved and spread the knowledge and inner workings of jazz to many. Please keep doing what you are doing Jens we all love it.🙏🙏🙏
Thanks James, Great story! 😁 As I say in the video, there are no rules, that is just all the triggered blues dads in the comment section who didn't watch the video 🙂
Jazz guitarists position their fingers on the frets for speed and/or for larger gaps between notes in a scale. This doesn't allow the hand to pivot well for bending. There are exceptions of course especially in fusion. Al diMeola comes to mind.
Depends on the feeling of the song, my song "Windswept (Birds On Ice)" has a somewhat jazz fusion vibe/rhythm and I was bending all over the lead guitar parts
My internal thinking: "what about John scofield?" Your first example:John Scofield. I think in jazz, it's more common to use chromatics to slide into the approach note more often than bending.
I am more into Blues and Classic Rock in case of playing the guitar. But i love listening to Jazz and from time to time i try to learn Jazz Guitar but it is very difficult for me. But i never thought about bendings in Jazz because... like you explained in the clip...for me it is a complete other world with his own natural rules in it. 🙂👍
@@erichnussbaum for shure he is...more the swing stuff and sometimes it sound a little bit latin influenced to me but yes overall jazz. But i dont understand your question...maybe i explained myself exidently wrong?😅 (english is not my native language)
Let jazz be jazz. I am not beholden to one style of music, but if you're going to learn a particular genre (jazz in this case) learn it as it is. Even if you don't become a "pure" jazz guitarist, the lessons learned can be invaluable and as is the case with any musical technique or phrasing (weather it's bending, tapping or slapping - for those who also play bass), you should do what is appropriate for the situation. and serve the song Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD.
Lots of amazing perspectives. Jens. Many more good perspectives than I could have thought of. But my analysis is naively straightforward: 12 to 52 flat-wounds with a wound third? I’ll pass on the bendy bendy.
I suppose developing a personal style does involve these kind of questions. Do I need bending? Do I fingertap? Do I play with a pick or fingerstyle? Over the years I've learned a lot of techniques and then simply discarded them as something that doesn't support the way I want to express myself. Bending is one of those things I seldom find use for. However I have no need to impose my personal style or choices on someone else. It takes confidence to follow your own path and do whatever you want, but there really isn't any rights or wrongs unless you're trying to imitate something.
I love doing really slight bends. Ala benny goodman or lester young doing those really cool bends and vibrato. There is no space for 2 step bends in jazz. Unless you're doing some sonny sharrock or john mclaghlin
Listnen darn that dream by Tal Farlow, or minor swing , etc.. by Django , there bend string . Each person have his own tast. Sometime, not too much , …, it’s good to me 😊
Brah, bendigs in jazz is not exlusively of the guitar, in fact almost all the horns in jazz use bendings on their solos. I Think that jazz guitar players got used to not bend the string in order to contrast the guitar solos from the other types of solos. Even drummers on jazz músic sometimes bend the patch of any given drum of the drum set in order to achieve a specific "vocal" Sound. I think this fascinating topic can be digged deeper
Johnny Smith once (the year was '62 or '63) came to Houston and played a set at H&H music co. They had set up a rhythm section for him and even had an 'opener' in one Paul Musara, an excellent player. Anyway, during one of Johnny's solos, he reached down and bent a note. I remember watching his face as he did, and he got this kind of Charlie Brown smile on his face. It was like, 'did you hear that?' And yes, we all heard it and took it to mean, 'There's actually a PLACE for this bending shit if you do it judiciously.' That's what we walked away with.
Nicely said. I agree with all you've said. Of course, it's also much harder to bend 14 gauge strings. LOL Personally, I admire guitarists who are chameleons and can change styles and play fast flow be bop and also can channel abit of Albert King at times. The late Billy Rogers was one of my faves. Not that well known because he died so tragically but a fierce bop player in a sort of Benson mode (hear his only CD "'The Artistry Of Billy Rogers") and then when you hear him on The Crusaders albums like "'Street Life"' or "'Images"' he sounds abit like Eric Gale... Listen to Billy's immense soloing on Joe Sample's ''Rainbow Seeker '' LP. The guy didn't read a note of music, all by ear. I loved Danny Gatton too, who could throw everything into the mix. (his "'Relentless"' album is amazing as his LIVE cd) Thank you again Jens.
Interesting points but for me the main reason is definitely the historical development of jazz - when charlie christian etc pioneered guitar as a solo instrument they were trying to fit in with other existing solo instruments - piano, vibes, trumpet, sax, clarinet, so they avoided things that sounded very "guitar-y" and that just became the jazz sound. Kind of a shame because they can absolutely sound great in swing and even bebop (I've been learning some Lester young solos, and some slow bends fit in very well - it's a different sound to blues bends)
@@JensLarsen Then maybe you should change that video title. You can say all you want about “YOU DIDNT WATCH THE VIDEO” but your video title contradicts what you say in your video and comment replies. Is it okay for me to bend in jazz or am I under the video titled “no bending in jazz please” you have to pick one. the name of the video should be “Why isn’t bending common in Jazz?”
Bending is a essential part of both bluegrass banjo and bluegrass guitar, and tony rice does it a lot too so imma have to disagree on that one but good video
Hi Jens I have watched a lot of your RUclips videos however I'm not to sure what arpeggios to learn first and what positions. I have learnt some beginner standards and want to improvise but it seems a lot of that comes from memorising arpeggios and necessary scales. is there a certain approach to this for someone starting to improvise jazz. Also do you have any tips for getting a jazz tone I have a semi-hollow and am still trying to get a warm traditional tone. many thanks
It is difficult to give too specific advice because everybody is different and at different levels, but maybe check out this post: jenslarsen.nl/how-to-learn-jazz-guitar-suggestions-to-begin-studying/
I think the reasons you gave are all legit, but I also think that Jazz is more of a horn based genre, so most players are trying to emulate the phrasing and attack of horns.
Theres no rules. Im not a jazz player but I aspire to learn from it. But to say you can or cant as a rule, nothing says you cant do what you want, thats why music is so amazing. You are free to play what you feel. There is no set rule. But if I were playing thick flat wound strings, I wouldn’t bend either.
I tried to bend on nylon string guitar and failed miserably, almost broke my strings while doing half-tone bend. I think that's why they don't use bends in classical music. Wrong instrument. Otherwise, great video, as always.
I think one reason for this is, that in other Genres it's way more important HOW you intonate and play the tone, while in Jazz people watch way more on which Notes they play, but not so much how. A jazz player would think more about which scale he is now using over this and that, while a blues player thinks more about what feeling he puts inside the tone.
The fact that the guitar is being playing basically like a single note piano is what turned me off from listening to jazz guitarists and to focus on the horns and pianists instead. Aside from Reinhardt of course.
modern rock and metal guitarists don't like bending either. They've labeled it Boomer bends and it's seen as a sort of excuse for lack of skill. I'm inclined to agree with them when it comes to most players.
fucking killer player. My buddy plays in a Gypsy jazz bunch. It has been awesome seeing him start as a novice and master that genre over the years. He shreds like Django.
I like hearing from a jazz musician that doesn't knock other types of music but speaks respectfully of different types of musicians. You guys are the cats I can learn a lot from
In 2 of the 3 genres you named where bending is not standard practice, flamenco and classical, the instrument of choice is the nylon string, an instrument where string bending is, for the most part, entirely impractical regardless of whether you want to do it or not. I think that may ultimately contribute just as much as convention/history.
@@alelaera13 why not? microtonality is key to flamenco music, flamenco singers sing "outside" equal temperament all the time (neutral thirds and seconds about), and flamenco melody lines make frequent use of portamenti; little microtonal inflections and sliding ornaments are core to flamenco's melodic vocabulary, I can only imagine that if those elements were readily playable on the classical guitar, that guitarists would make use of them too. Perhaps when you imagine bends you're imagining blues vocabulary, wailing on blue notes etc, which would obviously be out of place in flamenco
Very 'classic guy' and certainly not very much influenced by blues guitarists was Django, who used fast, half-step bends and also vibrato. And his Selmer didn't have anything that could be described as sustain. But it's all a matter of style, playing technics and finally - musical creativity..
You actually get a heap of sustain on gipsy jazz guitars. This is partly due to the construction of the body, but probably mainly due to the type of strings used which resonate way more than ordinary acoustic strings. They are also fairly light which facilitates bending.
I came to this video to learn a bit more on Jazz style of playing. My favorite player is Tony Iommi and he'll do a lot of this odd jazz phrasing along with his pentatonic scale. It's a unique style of playing that not too many or any one that I can think of plays like. This is 68' - 71' Sabbath stuff. Django was one of his influences.
I think the question should be why bending is such an important part of the other styles. It starts with Blues, using effects like bending, blue notes, vibrato and slide to make the phrases more like a voice. Traditionally, instrumentation in a Blues or Rock Band usually had a more restricted sound palette than in most Jazz ensembles also, so an effect like bending or slide or vibrato is the first step in being more expressive. Players can then beef up the arsenal of sounds even more with distortion, delay, fuzz, reverb, you name it. But, basically bending, vibrato and phrasing are used to make a guitar sing (per B. B. King).
Yeh. Vocal melodies are often flowing smoothly between notes and that's why i think bending is such an essential part of making the guitar sound like it's singing.
@@benrosow7997 Joke aside, for me it's easier to mention some singing blues guitarists: Robert Johnson, BB, The Three Kings (Albert, Freddie, BB), Eric Clapton, SRV, Joe Bonamassa.... And what about jazz? Umm... George Benson 😅
@@anta40 Right. I was talking about making the guitar sing. But for your tangent, who are all the singing horn players? Chet Baker. Umm. Singing is not common among jazz musicians. That's an entire different thread.
Many years ago I went through a Pat Metheny immersion and listened to him constantly, something I still do of course. He had a huge impact on me as a rock player where I used slurs instead of bends and I really loved it. Being a rock guitarist, I still bend of course but Pat's influence came directly from jazz and it's a huge part of my sound now. Thanks for the great content Jens, I've been a subscriber for a long time now!
What you said I completely co-sign on. About two decades ago I saw Pat Metheny on Austin City Limits and it changed me. I bought so many albums/dvds and tried to deeply study his thing. To your point - Pat does a bit of bending though the "slurs" to me sound a bit more musical. And hearing him do it in the high registers (a la George Benson) gives me the dissonance resolution that a bend does but without looking like a big grinning doofus. LOL
That same thing had happened to me as well years ago but I found a balance to where to bend and when to slide and slur notes. It's not a rule or style, you do it when you feel like doing it.
Ok I saw the legendary bassist Ray Brown live and he bended a lot of notes and he was one of the inventors of “Jazz.” Some would say Jeff Beck is one off the worlds greatest jazz guitarist’s and bending is his trademark to originality. Beck says he has one rule, to break every rule. Miles Davis bended notes with a hand device at the end of his trumpet. Larry Carlton, Steve Howe? Yes to sound like a boring traditionalist never bend a note or play anything remotely flashy. Maybe we should focus on something more interesting like creating a mood against a common tone? Sorry man it’s obvious you hit a nerve on me, because I bend the shit out of notes as much as possible, and for me and my limited jazz knowledge I’m not ready to bow to the no bending rule so for this vid 15 seconds in was 15 seconds to much.😂😊
Charlie Christian did a fair amount of 1/2 step bending, and I found that very effective. Kind of emulated the sound of a clarinet bending into a note rather than blues guitar-type bending, although that might not have yet existed at that point.
I thought of Charlie Christian also. Tasty bends of high thirds, for example, add a little oomph to some licks. But I agree with Jens that for the most part most jazz runs don’t lend themselves to bending nearly as well as conventional blues ala BB King does. I like to sprinkle them in here and there, like adding a pinch of hot pepper to some roasted potatoes.
That's probably because clarinet was the king of wind instruments in jazz at the time, and later it was sax. Sax has a much harder time sliding between notes compared to clarinet
One of the first things I noticed about jazz guitarists back when I was first exposed to them as a student was the fact that, when they wanted to slide into a note, they would almost always do so from just one semitone away, whereas I would usually slide from the nearest note in the scale, which would often be a full tone away. Seems like a minor difference, but it's amazing how much of a difference it makes. The moment you slide more than one fret, it suddenly becomes obvious to anyone listening that you're not a real jazz guitarist (if it wasn't already). And that got me wondering: why is that? The best explanation that I could come up with is that jazz musicians have, over years of playing together, developed their style by listening to each other and learning licks from each other. Jazz guitarists play chromatic grace notes because that's what keyboardists do, and keyboardists do it because it's a lot more doable. The same applies to bending. Keyboards don't bend (except when they do), so as guitarists and keyboardists learn licks off each other, any bending gets lost in translation, so to speak. That was my theory, anyway, for what it's worth...
It's just a different feeling hearing that one fret slir vs a half step or whole step bend. And Jazz is not the type of music where "LOOK AT ME, HEAR ME AND ONLY ME" type of music. You have to hear the chords and rhythm real closely to really make sense of the solo a lot of the times.
The guitar is known for its intonation challenges. In classical guitar, moving up and down the neck playing a Bach piece for example and keeping notes in tune can at times be a challenge. Slight bend of a note because of a challenging chord or phrase can change the intended harmony. Jazz is rich in harmonies and I think similar reasons why bending may not be used as much; especially when there are several instruments sharing the space.
A classical guitar has few intonation challenges for the same reason you don't bend notes: the strings don't respond to the tension change very much! Fretting a note doesn't make it go noticeably sharp. Classical guitars often have an uncompensated straight bar of ivory (or what have you) for a bridge. If your classical guitar has an intonation problem, your options are to try to change to new/different strings, have a luthier unglue the bridge and move it to a compensated position or get a different guitar. Probably, you should have this issue on your pre-purchase checklist.
Interesting! Thanks for this. My gripe with jazz guitar over the years has not been the lack of bending but rather the lack of tonal variety. So many jazz guitarists focus almost exclusively on the harmonic aspects of playing, and completely neglect their tone. It’s a shame. Horn players don’t do this. Classical violinists don’t do this. Bluegrass banjo players don’t do this. So why do the majority of jazz guitarists behave this way? When it comes to jazz guitar, I gravitate toward players like Grant Green, John Abercrombie, George Benson, Bill Frisell, and John Scofield, all of whom are instantly recognizable by their distinct and unique tone. None of the aforementioned have the cliched “neck pickup with tone knob rolled way back into a super clean solid-state amp” tone. Sorry but that sound bores me and leaves so much of the instrument’s sonic possibilities completely unexplored! Even Charlie Christian and Kenny Burrell had a little “hair” on their tone. Come on jazz guys. Get yourselves an old tweed Deluxe and turn it up til it growls a little! Play that bridge pickup every now and then, and explore things like pick attack and tone controls. T-Bone Walker was a master at this. Check out modern jump blues player Alex Schultz to see how many different tones can be achieved with a single pickup L5 and a good tube amp. It’s astonishing. Anyway, bottom line, I wish most jazz guys would put 10% of the effort that they put into their chops, into their tone. There’s precedent for this in the idiom. Rant concluded. Thanks for the great content Jens!
Thank you! To be honest, I don't think that Jazz is any worse than other genres when it comes to tone. There are habits and most people follow them and there will always be people who stick to the tradition when it comes to this. I really like people like Peter Bernstein, Jonathan Kreisberg or Lage Lund who have pretty traditional tones, but next to them you also have tons of people expanding on how Jazz guitar can sound. Try to listen to Gilad Hekselman or Nir Felder. I think there should be room for both. My impression is that you can switch out the names and say the exact same thing for Rock, Metal or Blues, simply because there is a tone that is associated with the style and many people stick close to that generic tone.
@@JensLarsen wow! was not expecting a reply from the man himself! Hope I didn't offend, Jens. You make some great points that I had not really considered. There is definitely a stereotypical "Strat through a super reverb" blues sound that I find boring as well. I'd rather listen to Lightnin Hopkins or Jimmy Reed! :) I'm not familiar with any of the players you mentioned so I will check them out now. I think my favorite thing about western music right now is how all the lines are being blurred. Just discovered your channel and it's amazing. I've already learned so much. Thank you for helping me expand my musical vocabulary. As a small time RUclipsr, I know how much work you put into your channel and your content is top notch. Subscribed with full notifications! All the best from Richmond, VA, USA
Tone might be related to age in a way. We wanted overdriven tone as youngsters but more acoustic sounds with age. In a sense, all music, if it sticks around, becomes classical music; hence old rockers, well into their seventies, still crank the amp. It wouldn't be 'rockin' any other way. The Edge must continue to wear that itchy watch cap! Rosenwinkel uses a overdriven reverb sound, but often doesn't swing and falls into the avant garde. I say play the type of tone and string bend as you like, enjoy playing the guitar while you are able because it ends like everything else. Jazz should be innovative not classical and it was and maybe still is.
Howard Roberts bent strings all the time. It became a great part of his jazz phrasing. Most all of his bends were 1/2 step bends but he did teach whole step bends and encouraged his students at GIT to incorporate bending into their Jazz vocabulary especially on the jazz head.
HR was the all time master of jazz guitar. He (and his colleagues at GIT and MI) were the most important teachers of all time. And his son, Jay, who still teaches using HR's approach uses bends as well as every other technique in his jazz playing. I stand by them! Every rationale provided herein is easily debunked.
I'm glad somebody brought this up. In my opinion we should ALL be paying closer attention to a master such as Howard Roberts, instead of using Gilmour as click-bait to support a baseless argument....
Indeed. More guitarists should take heed. Jay is amazing as well. Check him out and his school.. Roberts Music Institute. In addition to his material, you can find many HR clips. Great stuff!! Tell him seattlevegas sent you 😎
He did, David! And we (as students) also learned to *play through the changes*, not just bend our way through the "hard parts." This is an important point that I think Jens missed. I think HR was masterful at listening and using all of the available devices to do what fit the song and how it fits with the player's taste/orientation
Don't think Jazz world isn't full of people with very limited tastes. I remember three people in my life that wanted to limit my musical learning, my jazz combo teacher that told me my instrument wasn't for jazz (portuguese guitar), I had another jazz teacher tell me never to use b9 in music because it is just wrong (I wonder if he ever heard of Paco Delucia, or flamenco for that matter) , and another jazz student tell me I shouldn't play eletric guitar because it didn't suit me, and he never saw me play before (i played for 20 years before joining that "jazz school". So yea. Never limit your learning and remember, only you control your practice time, and focus. Only you command where your music will lead you, no one else, not even "very erudite, nationally famous and venerated jazz legends". As long as you work at it to prove your language true.
@@JensLarsen Course Jens, but didn't expect it at one of the highly rated jazz schools in my country. The conflict in students arises when those wrongful limitations are imposed by people that have a strong academic and personal authority over you. As you said, shouldn't hold you back, there's plenty of good music schools and teachers in the world.
@@MiguelBaptista1981 You'll encounter that everywere. Often it is better to focus on what you can learn from someone instead of what you should not learn 🙂🙂
Another thing you missed is that most jazz guitars use flat wound strings. Definitely a factor in bending strings. I'm a bassist (but play guitar as well) and I was in a jazz group where our guitarist had a 1970 Gibson L5 with flats on it. I played his guitar often, and I can tell you, that guitar was VERY hard to bend notes on!
Listen to Johnny Hodges for thirty seconds and tell me it has no place. (A lot of straight ahead emulating guitarists have always seemed myopic on points like this, to me. Lots of self-limiting beliefs out there. I look forward to hearing your take, Jens. Cheers, Daniel)
The bends found in Swing and say Fusion sax lines are typically executed very differently than in typical blues guitar riffs. Wealth of musical devices to explore out there-erm, in moderation, like everything. And AC/DC definitely needs more synth bass. 🥂
Having hung out backstage with them, it’s likely those champagne glasses contain sparkling water. But definitely more synth bass is needed in all genres. 😎🤘🏼
Gene ammons had bebop chops. He played with a big band with Charlie Parker. Ammons bends notes on his last half of his career. And always kept the bebop thing going.
I dont agree. Bebop language includes blues and bendings. In the other hand, i agree in blues and rock guitarist misleading jazz style on a jam. But Bendigs are just a technice, not a style
Maybe .005% of all the Jazz guitarists I've known could effectively do up bends! I think the fact that its hard to do properly and must be maintained is a deal killer for most. Even the great Joe Pass who had amazing skills would occasionally do ugly bends, Barney Kessel could pull off some lemons too. I think a great video would be examples of bad bends by jazz greats! There is a mountain of examples out there!
Musical styles are like languages. Think about how ah english person vocalizes the letter R and how a french person does the same thing. Totally different. Bending is not a typical phoneme in jazz language.
@@oldtimetinfoilhatwearer I don't think that analogy works, because music isn't the same thing as language. The real reason why bends aren't common in jazz is only because that's the convention - most jazz players just don't do it. But the fact that most jazz players don't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't. Conventions are not set in stone.
I agree with what you said Jen. Also, it seems that traditional jazz guitar playing simply evolved that way, with virtually no string bending. Nevertheless, there MIGHT be a few other POSSIBLE reasons that are not very altruistic. Jazz has always had its roots connected to blues. However, jazz tends to be viewed as more sophisticated because of its musical complexity. Unfortunately, it's created some snobbish players who look down at Blues players simplicity and grittiness. I think some traditional jazz players didn't bend their strings because they were afraid to be associated with blues players, and therefore judged as less sophisticated. But Jazz singers and jazz horn players do "bend" notes and sustain them. Therefore, it is not foreign to the style. So why not with the guitar? Of course, non-traditional jazz players like John McLaughlin did some stunning Jazz playing, while bending strings. Flamenco and classical have no roots in bluesy steel string bending. It's played with nylon strings which aren't easy by to bend. Although, Flamenco singers do "bend" their notes and they sustain them too.
The whole style war thing goes both ways (just read the comments 😁) I don't care to get into that. If you look a little closer at Jazz phrasing then the matrial that we hear as Jazz lines, which is mostly 8th note based and flowing does not really benefit from bending, in fact the phrasing and technique sort of work against each, and this is true for the horns and singers as well. They do bends in themes, blues phrases and ballads not in the lines.
@@JensLarsen Those lines got to be fixed then, bends are used in all traditional world music, even fiddlers and country players do it let alone blues players, indian music, middle eastern music has it in fast improvised solo parts as well.
One can play amazing without bends but another can play amazing with bends. Break the rules and listen to what's inside you. Tradition is just that, tradition, nothing wrong with it. Take your music to the next level because maybe that's what jazz is all about....btw love ya Jens!
Jens, your points made me consider the way Jeff Beck captures key "mood" of Mingus' "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" cover -- with electric guitar string bends and sustain. His phrasing and tone resonate for me in a "jazz way".
I've heard Kenny Burrell use bends. When I was at Berklee of my 2 guitar teachers one didn't bend but encouraged me to utilized bends ( I had been playing rock), the other used bends and pointed to sax players as an example, more or less say that they bend and hold notes much the way that rock guitar players do. So in his mind it was more than okay.
Yes, jazz horn players bend notes, jazz singers bend notes, jazz upright and fretless bass players slide and bend notes, but thinking that guitarists in the same genre shouldn't is a bit odd. Anything can be overdone, but bends and vibrato can put a little spice in the sound.
The way a saxophone sounds was implemented to the guitar way later, when fusion came along. The distortion allowed more sustain and a more aggressive approach in general. Robben Ford talks about this with Rick Beato.
I think you really hit the mark with the early instruments having heavy strings and being potentially feedback prone. The style was developed with the tools that were available at the time.
But there are those guitarists who STILL swear by heavy strings today and I think they have a point . Unless you have fingers like SRV that partially accounts for lack of bending strings in jazz . It’s tough for most of us mortals to bend 13’ strings.
My first post on this was not fully clear. Up bends are most beautiful with strong vibrato in the fingers. This is the hard part of that technique. But I think bends with vibrato is simply wonderful on the long notes of bebop. The Scofield in the video is a great example of that working well.
As many people have written here before, apart from John Scofield, George Benson also does quite a lot of bending. However, I would without hesitation describe Benson as a 100% Jazz Guitarist, and not as a kind of Rock or Fusion player. On the other hand, Allan Holdsworth has always been associated more with the Jazz/Rock Fusion camp and he actually bends very little. Maybe he bends a half-step at Maximum (however, he tends to use the Whammy Bar quite a bit). So there goes more into the distinction of Genres than pure phrasing techniques …
Excellent food for thought, Jens ! I certainly agree with you : musics like bebop where rythm and syncopation are of great importance don't get along too well with bending, in my view. And excessive use of string bending, no matter what kind of music you play, can actually become kind of a distraction : you sacrifice the notes and the melody. In blues, rock and the like (pentatonics in general) I guess bending is okay provided it's used without exageration. Thanks for raising the issue. Lemme go through comments made by a few other followers...
Bebop guitar has an ascending spiral and this spiral sound is played in legato. It's an imitation of the sax and trumpet sound. It's very difficult to do bends when playing like this because it breaks the spiral. In hard bop, with all the bluesy influence, small bends are possible and very tasteful.In jazz fusion, which is the case of schofield, they alternate and incorporate blues rock with several types of jazz from bebop onwards, therefore, small bends are also used frequently. Jeff Beck is probably the best example, when playing jazz/rock. Even Holdsworth, the legato master, did subtle bends, which allowed him to get out of the sax like spiral sound to a sustained trumpet expression.
Surprised you didn’t mention Django, he bends and uses vibrato all the time. But I think you hit the nail on the head. Only time I can get away with bends is if I’m transcribing a horn solo that has them
I think it's a lot to do with reading music. Many jazz guitarists are learning Parker and Coltrane solos, piano sax flute trumpet solos transcribed for guitar. It's become traditional for the guitar to emulate those instruments, especially piano and sax. Also, heavy gauge strings and high action on all those jazz guitars don't really make bending easy or easy to discover pre-1950 (before all that country, rockabilly, blues and rnb). Many modern jazz guitarists own several guitar for their corresponding genres. They come from metal, blues, indie, backgrounds as much as they come from classical or purely jazz backgrounds. Jazz players have been bending and should bend, since lots of horn players bend in their own ways, and would bend if given their instruments allowed it
Thanks Jens. Exactly. The first time I heard bending was when the Fusion movement began. Some of the pioneers, like Carlton, and McLaughlin, still include it in their performances, but Carlton is playing Steely Dan, and McLaughlin plays jazz licks when playing jazz. Have you ever seen that great film with Dexter Gordon, After Midnight? That's John McLaughlin in the band, playing sweet jazz lines. I think it was Herbie on piano, too.
The kind jazz concernd with bending, is too formulaic to matter... there are jazz musicians bending (pun intended) all the rules, including much stricter than "no bending"
Great video. I learned much. I lived six years in NE Tennessee. Bluegrass is huge there. Comparing the history of Jazz to the history of Bluegrass made complete sense to the usage & efficiency of guitar playing in both genres. I’m gonna check out Joe Scoefield.
Those all sound plausible. One elaboration is the use of fairly heavy, often flatwound strings, which are tough to bend, especially repeatedly. A lot of hardcore string benders play quite light strings.
Do you use bends? Why is it not more common in Jazz?
✅ 7 Hard Jazz Guitar Skills that pay off forever:
ruclips.net/video/TSXJe7YkI_k/видео.html
Because smugs
It's because you play jazz with different fingers then you use for blues or Rock.
Django Reinhardt uses a lot of slides and half step bends. It may be hard to discern the difference at high speed.
Hey Jens, do you have a favorite metal band? Much of the reason I watch your videos is so I can add some jazz spiciness to the strange soup I like to call "my style". I'll likely never go out of my way to listen to polka or country (truthfully I usually avoid those genres except for Johnny Cash lol) but playing in these styles is pretty fun.
Thank you for another awesome (and thought-provoking) video! ✌
To your point on equipment, the wound G string vs plain G has a large impact. It is really hard - and slow - to bend a wound G, which takes a key string out of the mix.
Jazz doesn't need more bends, it needs more cowbells.
Yes! 😂
Baby dont fear the reaper Lmao on time my friend🤣🤣🤣🤣👍😎☠☠💀💀
Can we add tambourine while we’re at it
@@josed5584 nah but maybe some triangle
I got a fever. And the only cure, is more cowbell
Very interesting topic. I agree that bending and bebop is not the most natural combination. Gypsy jazz it can work through. Django loved a good half step bend
Julian Lage loves a bend and is a total boss
Julian is my fave guitar player right now.
I was thinking the exact same thing. I’m not sure why you’d take one technique like bending off the table.
and as jens underscored: sco. 🤷♂️i say if u can make it work do it. also, jeff beck’s version of good bye pork pie hat.
…John Scofield as well
@@jeremyversusjazz yeh this videos title is off….he goes on about no bending but then says here’s a few people that do it and it’s fine….😑
Hi - a blues based player here who occasionally tips a small toe into the shallow reaches of jazz. I think the number of notes played is a huge factor. When I’m play scales with more notes than the stripped down pentatonics that I’m used to, I find bending ceases to be an option but when I jump back into a pentatonic then all of a sudden there’s space for bends to come along too. Tempo speed is also a factor.
Plus theres the strong stylistic association of bends with the Blues. I often practice playing a pentatonic scale without bends and its interesting to observe how I play alternative melodic lines that I wouldn’t normally play and sit outside the blues style and feel.
On the topic of gear, maybe it isn't the limitations of guitar - but the limitations of saxophones and trumpets. They are more traditional melodic instruments in jazz, so perhaps they've influenced guitar
I think a big influence on the lack of bends in jazz guitar, comes from some of the early pioneers trying imitate other instruments and the jazz guitar “sound” has evolved from there. Also how could you do a video on guitar bends and not talk about Django Reinhardt?? 😮 great video! 🙌👍
i think vibrato is synonymous with good taste and all the other attributes you mention, not bending by itself. Also, syncopation and playing in time with a swinging groove is essential to all other western styles, I disagree with the distinction of being attributed to jazz only or mainly. A fan of your channel even if I'm not a jazz guitarist. Keep up the good work!
Thanks I am not saying that other styles don't have syncopation, just that it is not really used together with bending very often in blues :)
Right! Metalhead here, and big bends are a bit out of favor in modern metal (if you do it a lot people tell to you stop the boomer bends), but if you're gonna swear off hammer-ons and pull-offs and vibratos and pinch harmonics, might as well play a synth. Light touches are a big part of the expressiveness of flamenco and fado, too. 😉🤘
😀😃😄This is so informative. Years ago I was taking lessons from a fairly reputable jazz player ( Carlton Kitto...a few clips of him on U-Tube) I was already playing in a Rock band so I did a lot of bending. Once during a lesson instead of sliding up two notes I took it upon myself to bend to the note. Carlton who was a purist went livid I did not understand why till I watched this video, Ha Ha. We all loved Carlton though and he -like you- loved and spread the knowledge and inner workings of jazz to many. Please keep doing what you are doing Jens we all love it.🙏🙏🙏
Thanks James, Great story! 😁
As I say in the video, there are no rules, that is just all the triggered blues dads in the comment section who didn't watch the video 🙂
I love Zakk Wylde and similar player John Sykes, but I also love jazz guitar. Nowadays a lot more than used to.
For me, Robben Ford's playing on the first Yellowjackets album was the first crossover between jazz and blues that made perfect sense.
In addition to sustain issues I think many archtops with heavy gauge flatwound strings can have too much string tension to make bending practical
George Benson incorporated bends in his jazz solos and it sounds pretty good!.
Jazz guitarists position their fingers on the frets for speed and/or for larger gaps between notes in a scale. This doesn't allow the hand to pivot well for bending. There are exceptions of course especially in fusion. Al diMeola comes to mind.
People said “no trampolines in basketball” and now Slamball has its own TV channel
The second you bend, even if it's a quarter bent. It becomes the blues and there's no goin back!👌🏾
It would appear that most commenters didn’t watch the video. Great video, Jens!
Thank you! Yes, a lot of people getting triggered but not really checking out the video 😁
Depends on the feeling of the song, my song "Windswept (Birds On Ice)" has a somewhat jazz fusion vibe/rhythm and I was bending all over the lead guitar parts
I often think of a term that Blixa Bargeld used, “the great Jazz lie”. It wasn’t supposed to follow a formula.
My internal thinking: "what about John scofield?" Your first example:John Scofield.
I think in jazz, it's more common to use chromatics to slide into the approach note more often than bending.
Yes, slides are certainly more common!
I am more into Blues and Classic Rock in case of playing the guitar. But i love listening to Jazz and from time to time i try to learn Jazz Guitar but it is very difficult for me. But i never thought about bendings in Jazz because... like you explained in the clip...for me it is a complete other world with his own natural rules in it. 🙂👍
So Django Reinhardt is not jazz?
@@erichnussbaum for shure he is...more the swing stuff and sometimes it sound a little bit latin influenced to me but yes overall jazz. But i dont understand your question...maybe i explained myself exidently wrong?😅 (english is not my native language)
Let jazz be jazz. I am not beholden to one style of music, but if you're going to learn a particular genre (jazz in this case) learn it as it is. Even if you don't become a "pure" jazz guitarist, the lessons learned can be invaluable and as is the case with any musical technique or phrasing (weather it's bending, tapping or slapping - for those who also play bass), you should do what is appropriate for the situation. and serve the song Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD.
Lots of amazing perspectives. Jens. Many more good perspectives than I could have thought of. But my analysis is naively straightforward: 12 to 52 flat-wounds with a wound third? I’ll pass on the bendy bendy.
I suppose developing a personal style does involve these kind of questions. Do I need bending? Do I fingertap? Do I play with a pick or fingerstyle?
Over the years I've learned a lot of techniques and then simply discarded them as something that doesn't support the way I want to express myself. Bending is one of those things I seldom find use for. However I have no need to impose my personal style or choices on someone else.
It takes confidence to follow your own path and do whatever you want, but there really isn't any rights or wrongs unless you're trying to imitate something.
But if you don't bend strings how can you make the right guitar face when you hit "the note"?
There is that 😁
I love doing really slight bends. Ala benny goodman or lester young doing those really cool bends and vibrato. There is no space for 2 step bends in jazz. Unless you're doing some sonny sharrock or john mclaghlin
I think of the slide as the jazz version of bending.
Yes, that is often used in a similar way :)
Flamenco and Classical are played on nylon strings, which makes bending nigh-impossible.
Django bends
gypsy jazz?
@@bradford_shaun_murray yes
Listnen darn that dream by Tal Farlow, or minor swing , etc.. by Django , there bend string . Each person have his own tast. Sometime, not too much , …, it’s good to me 😊
Brah, bendigs in jazz is not exlusively of the guitar, in fact almost all the horns in jazz use bendings on their solos. I Think that jazz guitar players got used to not bend the string in order to contrast the guitar solos from the other types of solos. Even drummers on jazz músic sometimes bend the patch of any given drum of the drum set in order to achieve a specific "vocal" Sound. I think this fascinating topic can be digged deeper
Julian Lage bend his strings, and that works marvellously ;)
Johnny Smith once (the year was '62 or '63) came to Houston and played a set at H&H music co. They had set up a rhythm section for him and even had an 'opener' in one Paul Musara, an excellent player. Anyway, during one of Johnny's solos, he reached down and bent a note. I remember watching his face as he did, and he got this kind of Charlie Brown smile on his face. It was like, 'did you hear that?' And yes, we all heard it and took it to mean, 'There's actually a PLACE for this bending shit if you do it judiciously.' That's what we walked away with.
There's no rules. Just Focus on the feeling. Which is pretty much what he explained in my opinion.
Exactly 🙂
Nicely said. I agree with all you've said. Of course, it's also much harder to bend 14 gauge strings. LOL Personally, I admire guitarists who are chameleons and can change styles and play fast flow be bop and also can channel abit of Albert King at times. The late Billy Rogers was one of my faves. Not that well known because he died so tragically but a fierce bop player in a sort of Benson mode (hear his only CD "'The Artistry Of Billy Rogers") and then when you hear him on The Crusaders albums like "'Street Life"' or "'Images"' he sounds abit like Eric Gale... Listen to Billy's immense soloing on Joe Sample's ''Rainbow Seeker '' LP. The guy didn't read a note of music, all by ear. I loved Danny Gatton too, who could throw everything into the mix. (his "'Relentless"' album is amazing as his LIVE cd) Thank you again Jens.
Interesting points but for me the main reason is definitely the historical development of jazz - when charlie christian etc pioneered guitar as a solo instrument they were trying to fit in with other existing solo instruments - piano, vibes, trumpet, sax, clarinet, so they avoided things that sounded very "guitar-y" and that just became the jazz sound. Kind of a shame because they can absolutely sound great in swing and even bebop (I've been learning some Lester young solos, and some slow bends fit in very well - it's a different sound to blues bends)
I think that telling people “not to do something” in any art form is nearly always pretentious, elitist, and creatively vapid.
Good thing I am not doing that then 😁
@@JensLarsen Then maybe you should change that video title. You can say all you want about “YOU DIDNT WATCH THE VIDEO” but your video title contradicts what you say in your video and comment replies. Is it okay for me to bend in jazz or am I under the video titled “no bending in jazz please”
you have to pick one.
the name of the video should be “Why isn’t bending common in Jazz?”
Bending is a essential part of both bluegrass banjo and bluegrass guitar, and tony rice does it a lot too so imma have to disagree on that one but good video
benson bends, sco bends, moreno bends, django bends, pat metheny bends, jim hall bends so on and so on: all great heavy metal guitar players
Hi Jens I have watched a lot of your RUclips videos however I'm not to sure what arpeggios to learn first and what positions. I have learnt some beginner standards and want to improvise but it seems a lot of that comes from memorising arpeggios and necessary scales. is there a certain approach to this for someone starting to improvise jazz. Also do you have any tips for getting a jazz tone I have a semi-hollow and am still trying to get a warm traditional tone. many thanks
It is difficult to give too specific advice because everybody is different and at different levels, but maybe check out this post: jenslarsen.nl/how-to-learn-jazz-guitar-suggestions-to-begin-studying/
that's why I love the blues(and don't care about jazz music)
I read the caption " Jazz fans are horrible tools".
Yes.
😏
Google knows... 😁
I think the reasons you gave are all legit, but I also think that Jazz is more of a horn based genre, so most players are trying to emulate the phrasing and attack of horns.
Theres no rules. Im not a jazz player but I aspire to learn from it. But to say you can or cant as a rule, nothing says you cant do what you want, thats why music is so amazing. You are free to play what you feel. There is no set rule. But if I were playing thick flat wound strings, I wouldn’t bend either.
Which is also what I am saying in the video, right?
@@JensLarsen Yes Sir, totally understood what point you were making. Thank you for making the video!
My question is why did the Netherlands produce so many great rock bands in the 70's and Germany didn't?
Brilliant.
Other people use bending to demonstrate "good taste and emotion" - I use it to flex on piano players.
Which is indeed a superior approach! 😁
Bend string just to easily get to the higher note ? jazz guitarists just plays that note instead and then a few extra ones :D
😁
Flamenco uses bends and so does classical music. Jazz, Aldi Meola uses tons of bends. Modern jazz uses bends old jazz doesn’t really use it much.
I tried to bend on nylon string guitar and failed miserably, almost broke my strings while doing half-tone bend. I think that's why they don't use bends in classical music. Wrong instrument. Otherwise, great video, as always.
what is shangra?
I think it's simple: it just doesn't -sound- like Jazz. Bending -sounds- like blues.
You can tell by the comments who didn’t watch the video…
I think one reason for this is, that in other Genres it's way more important HOW you intonate and play the tone, while in Jazz people watch way more on which Notes they play, but not so much how. A jazz player would think more about which scale he is now using over this and that, while a blues player thinks more about what feeling he puts inside the tone.
...Except that there is little (if any) Blues in Django, and bends were a regular part of his playing.
Jazz doesn't have string bending...until it does. There are no rules, just suggestions in the creative arts.
The fact that the guitar is being playing basically like a single note piano is what turned me off from listening to jazz guitarists and to focus on the horns and pianists instead. Aside from Reinhardt of course.
modern rock and metal guitarists don't like bending either. They've labeled it Boomer bends and it's seen as a sort of excuse for lack of skill. I'm inclined to agree with them when it comes to most players.
Mclaughlin has bent ever since we all knew him in Mahavishnu - then in SHakti and after that his
fusion used bends
True masters bend the piano!
Don't forget the great Django Reinhardt! He used wonderful half steps bends which add so much emotional expression to his music.
Bien dit!
Exactly
That's what I wanted to say, Django's bends are fire
Ah yeah, those quick little bend and release bends. I also think about the Solo for Santeria which is somewhat jazzy and has several bends
fucking killer player. My buddy plays in a Gypsy jazz bunch. It has been awesome seeing him start as a novice and master that genre over the years. He shreds like Django.
I like hearing from a jazz musician that doesn't knock other types of music but speaks respectfully of different types of musicians. You guys are the cats I can learn a lot from
Great! Go for it :)
We can all learn from elitists
In 2 of the 3 genres you named where bending is not standard practice, flamenco and classical, the instrument of choice is the nylon string, an instrument where string bending is, for the most part, entirely impractical regardless of whether you want to do it or not. I think that may ultimately contribute just as much as convention/history.
while i partially agree with you, I can't possibly imagine using bending in those genres
That's why he mentioned them. And as he said, the gear somewhat determines the style.
Lonnie Johnson, a seminal figure in both jazz and blues guitar, used to bend notes on nylon strings.
@@alelaera13 why not? microtonality is key to flamenco music, flamenco singers sing "outside" equal temperament all the time (neutral thirds and seconds about), and flamenco melody lines make frequent use of portamenti; little microtonal inflections and sliding ornaments are core to flamenco's melodic vocabulary, I can only imagine that if those elements were readily playable on the classical guitar, that guitarists would make use of them too.
Perhaps when you imagine bends you're imagining blues vocabulary, wailing on blue notes etc, which would obviously be out of place in flamenco
@@Muzikman127 yes I guess you're right. it's the thought of bending on a classical guitar in general that just seems alien to me.
Very 'classic guy' and certainly not very much influenced by blues guitarists was Django, who used fast, half-step bends and also vibrato. And his Selmer didn't have anything that could be described as sustain. But it's all a matter of style, playing technics and finally - musical creativity..
You actually get a heap of sustain on gipsy jazz guitars. This is partly due to the construction of the body, but probably mainly due to the type of strings used which resonate way more than ordinary acoustic strings. They are also fairly light which facilitates bending.
@@robinbalean958 I feel like the dryness of the argentines creates an illusion of lack of sustain
My experience is that Selmer has a lot less sustain than eg. Yamaha SG..
@@jarrodclark7988 GOOD ONE
I came to this video to learn a bit more on Jazz style of playing. My favorite player is Tony Iommi and he'll do a lot of this odd jazz phrasing along with his pentatonic scale.
It's a unique style of playing that not too many or any one that I can think of plays like. This is 68' - 71' Sabbath stuff. Django was one of his influences.
I think the question should be why bending is such an important part of the other styles. It starts with Blues, using effects like bending, blue notes, vibrato and slide to make the phrases more like a voice. Traditionally, instrumentation in a Blues or Rock Band usually had a more restricted sound palette than in most Jazz ensembles also, so an effect like bending or slide or vibrato is the first step in being more expressive. Players can then beef up the arsenal of sounds even more with distortion, delay, fuzz, reverb, you name it. But, basically bending, vibrato and phrasing are used to make a guitar sing (per B. B. King).
And God knows we wouldn't want ro make our guitars sing while playing jazz. 🤪
Yeh. Vocal melodies are often flowing smoothly between notes and that's why i think bending is such an essential part of making the guitar sound like it's singing.
@@benrosow7997 Joke aside, for me it's easier to mention some singing blues guitarists: Robert Johnson, BB, The Three Kings (Albert, Freddie, BB), Eric Clapton, SRV, Joe Bonamassa.... And what about jazz? Umm... George Benson 😅
@@anta40 Right. I was talking about making the guitar sing. But for your tangent, who are all the singing horn players? Chet Baker. Umm. Singing is not common among jazz musicians. That's an entire different thread.
@@benrosow7997 Unless you're a jazz vocalist.
Many years ago I went through a Pat Metheny immersion and listened to him constantly, something I still do of course. He had a huge impact on me as a rock player where I used slurs instead of bends and I really loved it. Being a rock guitarist, I still bend of course but Pat's influence came directly from jazz and it's a huge part of my sound now. Thanks for the great content Jens, I've been a subscriber for a long time now!
Thank you Brett! Makes my day that you check out the videos!
@@JensLarsen You know you are doing a great job when Brett Garsed likes your work !
What you said I completely co-sign on. About two decades ago I saw Pat Metheny on Austin City Limits and it changed me. I bought so many albums/dvds and tried to deeply study his thing. To your point - Pat does a bit of bending though the "slurs" to me sound a bit more musical. And hearing him do it in the high registers (a la George Benson) gives me the dissonance resolution that a bend does but without looking like a big grinning doofus. LOL
That same thing had happened to me as well years ago but I found a balance to where to bend and when to slide and slur notes. It's not a rule or style, you do it when you feel like doing it.
Ok I saw the legendary bassist Ray Brown live and he bended a lot of notes and he was one of the inventors of “Jazz.” Some would say Jeff Beck is one off the worlds greatest jazz guitarist’s and bending is his trademark to originality. Beck says he has one rule, to break every rule. Miles Davis bended notes with a hand device at the end of his trumpet. Larry Carlton, Steve Howe? Yes to sound like a boring traditionalist never bend a note or play anything remotely flashy. Maybe we should focus on something more interesting like creating a mood against a common tone? Sorry man it’s obvious you hit a nerve on me, because I bend the shit out of notes as much as possible, and for me and my limited jazz knowledge I’m not ready to bow to the no bending rule so for this vid 15 seconds in was 15 seconds to much.😂😊
Charlie Christian did a fair amount of 1/2 step bending, and I found that very effective. Kind of emulated the sound of a clarinet bending into a note rather than blues guitar-type bending, although that might not have yet existed at that point.
I thought of Charlie Christian also. Tasty bends of high thirds, for example, add a little oomph to some licks. But I agree with Jens that for the most part most jazz runs don’t lend themselves to bending nearly as well as conventional blues ala BB King does. I like to sprinkle them in here and there, like adding a pinch of hot pepper to some roasted potatoes.
Also Django did some kind of bending string vibratos.
That's probably because clarinet was the king of wind instruments in jazz at the time, and later it was sax. Sax has a much harder time sliding between notes compared to clarinet
One of the first things I noticed about jazz guitarists back when I was first exposed to them as a student was the fact that, when they wanted to slide into a note, they would almost always do so from just one semitone away, whereas I would usually slide from the nearest note in the scale, which would often be a full tone away. Seems like a minor difference, but it's amazing how much of a difference it makes. The moment you slide more than one fret, it suddenly becomes obvious to anyone listening that you're not a real jazz guitarist (if it wasn't already). And that got me wondering: why is that?
The best explanation that I could come up with is that jazz musicians have, over years of playing together, developed their style by listening to each other and learning licks from each other. Jazz guitarists play chromatic grace notes because that's what keyboardists do, and keyboardists do it because it's a lot more doable. The same applies to bending. Keyboards don't bend (except when they do), so as guitarists and keyboardists learn licks off each other, any bending gets lost in translation, so to speak. That was my theory, anyway, for what it's worth...
The most common shortcut to being a better jazz guitar soloist is to cop from sax players, so yeah I think your theory holds water
you open my mind, now i will add that to my repertoire, thanks
It's just a different feeling hearing that one fret slir vs a half step or whole step bend.
And Jazz is not the type of music where "LOOK AT ME, HEAR ME AND ONLY ME" type of music.
You have to hear the chords and rhythm real closely to really make sense of the solo a lot of the times.
The guitar is known for its intonation challenges. In classical guitar, moving up and down the neck playing a Bach piece for example and keeping notes in tune can at times be a challenge. Slight bend of a note because of a challenging chord or phrase can change the intended harmony. Jazz is rich in harmonies and I think similar reasons why bending may not be used as much; especially when there are several instruments sharing the space.
Harmony in western classical music and jazz is probably why bends are not used much. But the soloist can use it anyways.
A classical guitar has few intonation challenges for the same reason you don't bend notes: the strings don't respond to the tension change very much! Fretting a note doesn't make it go noticeably sharp. Classical guitars often have an uncompensated straight bar of ivory (or what have you) for a bridge. If your classical guitar has an intonation problem, your options are to try to change to new/different strings, have a luthier unglue the bridge and move it to a compensated position or get a different guitar. Probably, you should have this issue on your pre-purchase checklist.
@@kdakan but bends/slurs are common in brass and other instruments? why not guitar
Django bends and he did those beautiful steel-like bends where you start in a bend and un-bend (whatever that is called).
They're usually referred to as pre-bend 🙂
@@coreydavis5019, thanks!! I love the way he did those.
Interesting! Thanks for this. My gripe with jazz guitar over the years has not been the lack of bending but rather the lack of tonal variety. So many jazz guitarists focus almost exclusively on the harmonic aspects of playing, and completely neglect their tone. It’s a shame. Horn players don’t do this. Classical violinists don’t do this. Bluegrass banjo players don’t do this. So why do the majority of jazz guitarists behave this way? When it comes to jazz guitar, I gravitate toward players like Grant Green, John Abercrombie, George Benson, Bill Frisell, and John Scofield, all of whom are instantly recognizable by their distinct and unique tone. None of the aforementioned have the cliched “neck pickup with tone knob rolled way back into a super clean solid-state amp” tone. Sorry but that sound bores me and leaves so much of the instrument’s sonic possibilities completely unexplored! Even Charlie Christian and Kenny Burrell had a little “hair” on their tone. Come on jazz guys. Get yourselves an old tweed Deluxe and turn it up til it growls a little! Play that bridge pickup every now and then, and explore things like pick attack and tone controls. T-Bone Walker was a master at this. Check out modern jump blues player Alex Schultz to see how many different tones can be achieved with a single pickup L5 and a good tube amp. It’s astonishing. Anyway, bottom line, I wish most jazz guys would put 10% of the effort that they put into their chops, into their tone. There’s precedent for this in the idiom. Rant concluded. Thanks for the great content Jens!
Thank you! To be honest, I don't think that Jazz is any worse than other genres when it comes to tone. There are habits and most people follow them and there will always be people who stick to the tradition when it comes to this. I really like people like Peter Bernstein, Jonathan Kreisberg or Lage Lund who have pretty traditional tones, but next to them you also have tons of people expanding on how Jazz guitar can sound. Try to listen to Gilad Hekselman or Nir Felder. I think there should be room for both.
My impression is that you can switch out the names and say the exact same thing for Rock, Metal or Blues, simply because there is a tone that is associated with the style and many people stick close to that generic tone.
@@JensLarsen wow! was not expecting a reply from the man himself! Hope I didn't offend, Jens. You make some great points that I had not really considered. There is definitely a stereotypical "Strat through a super reverb" blues sound that I find boring as well. I'd rather listen to Lightnin Hopkins or Jimmy Reed! :)
I'm not familiar with any of the players you mentioned so I will check them out now. I think my favorite thing about western music right now is how all the lines are being blurred.
Just discovered your channel and it's amazing. I've already learned so much. Thank you for helping me expand my musical vocabulary. As a small time RUclipsr, I know how much work you put into your channel and your content is top notch. Subscribed with full notifications! All the best from Richmond, VA, USA
Tone might be related to age in a way. We wanted overdriven tone as youngsters but more acoustic sounds with age. In a sense, all music, if it sticks around, becomes classical music; hence old rockers, well into their seventies, still crank the amp. It wouldn't be 'rockin' any other way. The Edge must continue to wear that itchy watch cap! Rosenwinkel uses a overdriven reverb sound, but often doesn't swing and falls into the avant garde. I say play the type of tone and string bend as you like, enjoy playing the guitar while you are able because it ends like everything else. Jazz should be innovative not classical and it was and maybe still is.
As a gigging musician going from funk to pop to jazz gigs, I have to remind myself of this all the time. Thanks for the reminder Jens! 🤘
This was an amazing explanation of this! Like you, I had never even considered it. Learned a lot.
Thanks Brent 🙂
Howard Roberts bent strings all the time. It became a great part of his jazz phrasing. Most all of his bends were 1/2 step bends but he did teach whole step bends and encouraged his students at GIT to incorporate bending into their Jazz vocabulary especially on the jazz head.
HR was the all time master of jazz guitar. He (and his colleagues at GIT and MI) were the most important teachers of all time. And his son, Jay, who still teaches using HR's approach uses bends as well as every other technique in his jazz playing. I stand by them! Every rationale provided herein is easily debunked.
yup...🙂
I'm glad somebody brought this up. In my opinion we should ALL be paying closer attention to a master such as Howard Roberts, instead of using Gilmour as click-bait to support a baseless argument....
Indeed. More guitarists should take heed. Jay is amazing as well. Check him out and his school.. Roberts Music Institute. In addition to his material, you can find many HR clips. Great stuff!! Tell him seattlevegas sent you 😎
He did, David! And we (as students) also learned to *play through the changes*, not just bend our way through the "hard parts." This is an important point that I think Jens missed.
I think HR was masterful at listening and using all of the available devices to do what fit the song and how it fits with the player's taste/orientation
Don't think Jazz world isn't full of people with very limited tastes.
I remember three people in my life that wanted to limit my musical learning, my jazz combo teacher that told me my instrument wasn't for jazz (portuguese guitar), I had another jazz teacher tell me never to use b9 in music because it is just wrong (I wonder if he ever heard of Paco Delucia, or flamenco for that matter) , and another jazz student tell me I shouldn't play eletric guitar because it didn't suit me, and he never saw me play before (i played for 20 years before joining that "jazz school".
So yea. Never limit your learning and remember, only you control your practice time, and focus. Only you command where your music will lead you, no one else, not even "very erudite, nationally famous and venerated jazz legends". As long as you work at it to prove your language true.
You'll find people who have strong opinions in any genre. You shouldn't let that hold you back 🙂
@@JensLarsen Course Jens, but didn't expect it at one of the highly rated jazz schools in my country.
The conflict in students arises when those wrongful limitations are imposed by people that have a strong academic and personal authority over you.
As you said, shouldn't hold you back, there's plenty of good music schools and teachers in the world.
@@MiguelBaptista1981 You'll encounter that everywere. Often it is better to focus on what you can learn from someone instead of what you should not learn 🙂🙂
@@JensLarsen True
Does your teacher know about Latin Jazz?
Another thing you missed is that most jazz guitars use flat wound strings. Definitely a factor in bending strings. I'm a bassist (but play guitar as well) and I was in a jazz group where our guitarist had a 1970 Gibson L5 with flats on it. I played his guitar often, and I can tell you, that guitar was VERY hard to bend notes on!
Put on super jumbo frets.
Sorry, Django is who I try to be like. He basically invented jazz, or ar least jazz manouche. He bends.
Horn players bend..... why not guitar?
Glad I found this lol maybe he just means tastefully
Haha! Don't mistake the title for my opinion, if I could sum it up like that then I would not make a video on it 😁
Listen to Johnny Hodges for thirty seconds and tell me it has no place. (A lot of straight ahead emulating guitarists have always seemed myopic on points like this, to me. Lots of self-limiting beliefs out there. I look forward to hearing your take, Jens. Cheers, Daniel)
The bends found in Swing and say Fusion sax lines are typically executed very differently than in typical blues guitar riffs. Wealth of musical devices to explore out there-erm, in moderation, like everything. And AC/DC definitely needs more synth bass. 🥂
Having hung out backstage with them, it’s likely those champagne glasses contain sparkling water. But definitely more synth bass is needed in all genres. 😎🤘🏼
Jeep's Blues being a prime example.
Gene ammons had bebop chops. He played with a big band with Charlie Parker. Ammons bends notes on his last half of his career. And always kept the bebop thing going.
I dont agree. Bebop language includes blues and bendings. In the other hand, i agree in blues and rock guitarist misleading jazz style on a jam. But Bendigs are just a technice, not a style
Maybe .005% of all the Jazz guitarists I've known could effectively do up bends! I think the fact that its hard to do properly and must be maintained is a deal killer for most. Even the great Joe Pass who had amazing skills would occasionally do ugly bends, Barney Kessel could pull off some lemons too. I think a great video would be examples of bad bends by jazz greats! There is a mountain of examples out there!
Musical styles are like languages. Think about how ah english person vocalizes the letter R and how a french person does the same thing. Totally different.
Bending is not a typical phoneme in jazz language.
Exactly. It's not really a sin to be bilingual, but you probably shouldn't try to speak Urdu to a Finn.
@@oldtimetinfoilhatwearer I don't think that analogy works, because music isn't the same thing as language. The real reason why bends aren't common in jazz is only because that's the convention - most jazz players just don't do it. But the fact that most jazz players don't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't. Conventions are not set in stone.
Soon he'll be saying the harpsichord has no place in jazz
I am just getting started 😂
I agree with what you said Jen. Also, it seems that traditional jazz guitar playing simply evolved that way, with virtually no string bending.
Nevertheless, there MIGHT be a few other POSSIBLE reasons that are not very altruistic. Jazz has always had its roots connected to blues. However, jazz tends to be viewed as more sophisticated because of its musical complexity. Unfortunately, it's created some snobbish players who look down at Blues players simplicity and grittiness. I think some traditional jazz players didn't bend their strings because they were afraid to be associated with blues players, and therefore judged as less sophisticated. But Jazz singers and jazz horn players do "bend" notes and sustain them. Therefore, it is not foreign to the style. So why not with the guitar? Of course, non-traditional jazz players like John McLaughlin did some stunning Jazz playing, while bending strings.
Flamenco and classical have no roots in bluesy steel string bending. It's played with nylon strings which aren't easy by to bend. Although, Flamenco singers do "bend" their notes and they sustain them too.
The whole style war thing goes both ways (just read the comments 😁) I don't care to get into that.
If you look a little closer at Jazz phrasing then the matrial that we hear as Jazz lines, which is mostly 8th note based and flowing does not really benefit from bending, in fact the phrasing and technique sort of work against each, and this is true for the horns and singers as well. They do bends in themes, blues phrases and ballads not in the lines.
@@JensLarsen Those lines got to be fixed then, bends are used in all traditional world music, even fiddlers and country players do it let alone blues players, indian music, middle eastern music has it in fast improvised solo parts as well.
Why don't they bend in jazz? Have you ever tried bending on a guitar made in the thirties?!!
One can play amazing without bends but another can play amazing with bends. Break the rules and listen to what's inside you. Tradition is just that, tradition, nothing wrong with it. Take your music to the next level because maybe that's what jazz is all about....btw love ya Jens!
Jens, your points made me consider the way Jeff Beck captures key "mood" of Mingus' "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" cover -- with electric guitar string bends and sustain. His phrasing and tone resonate for me in a "jazz way".
I've heard Kenny Burrell use bends. When I was at Berklee of my 2 guitar teachers one didn't bend but encouraged me to utilized bends ( I had been playing rock), the other used bends and pointed to sax players as an example, more or less say that they bend and hold notes much the way that rock guitar players do. So in his mind it was more than okay.
Yes, jazz horn players bend notes, jazz singers bend notes, jazz upright and fretless bass players slide and bend notes, but thinking that guitarists in the same genre shouldn't is a bit odd. Anything can be overdone, but bends and vibrato can put a little spice in the sound.
The way a saxophone sounds was implemented to the guitar way later, when fusion came along. The distortion allowed more sustain and a more aggressive approach in general. Robben Ford talks about this with Rick Beato.
@@krokovay.marcell Your comment tells me you haven't listened very carefully to Charlie Christian.
I think you really hit the mark with the early instruments having heavy strings and being potentially feedback prone. The style was developed with the tools that were available at the time.
Exactly 🙂
But there are those guitarists who STILL swear by heavy strings today and I think they have a point . Unless you have fingers like SRV that partially accounts for lack of bending strings in jazz . It’s tough for most of us mortals to bend 13’ strings.
Its kind of why I play less my bigger hollow body with heavier string I suppose. Maybe it needs love atm
My first post on this was not fully clear. Up bends are most beautiful with strong vibrato in the fingers. This is the hard part of that technique. But I think bends with vibrato is simply wonderful on the long notes of bebop. The Scofield in the video is a great example of that working well.
As many people have written here before, apart from John Scofield, George Benson also does quite a lot of bending.
However, I would without hesitation describe Benson as a 100% Jazz Guitarist, and not as a kind of Rock or Fusion player.
On the other hand, Allan Holdsworth has always been associated more with the Jazz/Rock Fusion camp and he actually
bends very little. Maybe he bends a half-step at Maximum (however, he tends to use the Whammy Bar quite a bit).
So there goes more into the distinction of Genres than pure phrasing techniques …
Interesting perspective. I am always open to so many different takes. Thank you for this rather cool discussion!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent food for thought, Jens ! I certainly agree with you : musics like bebop where rythm and syncopation are of great importance don't get along too well with bending, in my view. And excessive use of string bending, no matter what kind of music you play, can actually become kind of a distraction : you sacrifice the notes and the melody. In blues, rock and the like (pentatonics in general) I guess bending is okay provided it's used without exageration. Thanks for raising the issue. Lemme go through comments made by a few other followers...
Bebop guitar has an ascending spiral and this spiral sound is played in legato. It's an imitation of the sax and trumpet sound. It's very difficult to do bends when playing like this because it breaks the spiral. In hard bop, with all the bluesy influence, small bends are possible and very tasteful.In jazz fusion, which is the case of schofield, they alternate and incorporate blues rock with several types of jazz from bebop onwards, therefore, small bends are also used frequently. Jeff Beck is probably the best example, when playing jazz/rock.
Even Holdsworth, the legato master, did subtle bends, which allowed him to get out of the sax like spiral sound to a sustained trumpet expression.
Surprised you didn’t mention Django, he bends and uses vibrato all the time. But I think you hit the nail on the head. Only time I can get away with bends is if I’m transcribing a horn solo that has them
Alls I'm sure of is @ 1:29 Tony Rice is King. RIP.
I think it's a lot to do with reading music. Many jazz guitarists are learning Parker and Coltrane solos, piano sax flute trumpet solos transcribed for guitar. It's become traditional for the guitar to emulate those instruments, especially piano and sax. Also, heavy gauge strings and high action on all those jazz guitars don't really make bending easy or easy to discover pre-1950 (before all that country, rockabilly, blues and rnb). Many modern jazz guitarists own several guitar for their corresponding genres. They come from metal, blues, indie, backgrounds as much as they come from classical or purely jazz backgrounds. Jazz players have been bending and should bend, since lots of horn players bend in their own ways, and would bend if given their instruments allowed it
Thanks Jens. Exactly. The first time I heard bending was when the Fusion movement began. Some of the pioneers, like Carlton, and McLaughlin, still include it in their performances, but Carlton is playing Steely Dan, and McLaughlin plays jazz licks when playing jazz. Have you ever seen that great film with Dexter Gordon, After Midnight? That's John McLaughlin in the band, playing sweet jazz lines. I think it was Herbie on piano, too.
The kind jazz concernd with bending, is too formulaic to matter... there are jazz musicians bending (pun intended) all the rules, including much stricter than "no bending"
Great video. I learned much. I lived six years in NE Tennessee. Bluegrass is huge there. Comparing the history of Jazz to the history of Bluegrass made complete sense to the usage & efficiency of guitar playing in both genres. I’m gonna check out Joe Scoefield.
Scofield is worthwhile! I am sure you will enjoy it!
Those all sound plausible. One elaboration is the use of fairly heavy, often flatwound strings, which are tough to bend, especially repeatedly. A lot of hardcore string benders play quite light strings.
It depends. When Scofield or mike stern bend it is still sounds jazzy but not players who up and down minor pentatonic and bend all the time.