Before I start showing you exercises, I want you to start to GET INTO THE HABIT OF CHECKING YOUR BENDS!

Using these two methods you can start to check the intonation of all the licks you already know to make sure you’re playing them in tune.

I never did this, I assumed I was good enough to be bending accurately automatically, and now I’ve had to go back and address the issues.

Here I’m going to show you two ways of checking your lines and getting the right notes in your ear…

The Verification Method and The Intended Line.

You can put these at any point within the given exercises or anytime you’re practicing any lines with bends in them. Get used to doing these regularly in your practice.

In the verification method you simply play the target note after you’ve bent to it. So play your bend, let that note sink into your ear, then play the note you were supposed to bend up to and check that you hit it.

You can’t fake success here. You need to be listening to your playing and know what your target notes are.

The intended Line means playing all the notes flat, with no bending. where you would play a bend, play the note that the bend was supposed to hit. So you are feeding your ear the pitches that you will recreated when you add the bends.

TASK: Take 5 minutes to practice these methods on licks already in your vocabulary. Are you bending in tune?