Bending rules Country-flavoured licks

Some of the following ideas are admittedly a little trickier than anything we’ve looked at in the previous columns. But hey, it’s all in the name of fun! The unifying theme throughout the following selection of licks is that they all utilise multiple strings, some of which are bent while others remain static. Consequently, there’s a distinctly ‘country’ flavour this month. It’s probably fair to say that country players have more fun with string bending than the rest of us do, and this is at least partially because the cleaner tones typical of the genre allow multiple strings to ring out simultaneously with great clarity, facilitating all kinds of new double- and triple-stop bending ideas that wouldn’t sound anywhere near as defined if you tried to play them through a more overdriven ‘rock’ amp.

One significant reference point for any country guitar player must surely be the sound of the pedal steel – an instrument that is all about bending. The mechanics of the pedal steel