Bending Rules Major scale bends

In the first section of our string-bending extravaganza we looked at bending notes within the familiar shapes of the Minor Pentatonic scale. This time, we’ll apply a similar approach to seven-note diatonic scales and also introduce a few new inflections to your string bending vocabulary.

The following licks are mostly based on the E Major scale (E-F#-G#-A-B-C#-D#). Some of the ideas work best when applied ‘positionally’, with the fretting hand rooted in one small area of the fretboard and using multiple strings, whereas other ideas show more of their true potential when you stay on a single string and utilise the whole length of the neck to achieve melodic range.