Another Guitarist Brought Out of Musical Coma(2)

And of course, these things were not addressed by his previous teacher, these hard cold facts were not being acknowledged. Instead, it was the usual "well, I know you can't

actually play anything, but how about we learn ten new scales this week anyway". And for that, I firmly feel, there is no excuse. The teacher is the professional, and should

certainly be willing to address the reality of what is happening, and not happening, with a student.
Bends and vibrato are the building block of all rock licks. Competent control over these building blocks, along with solid technique with the basic mechanics of picking the

notes of a pentatonic scale, is kindergarten and first grade for the rock guitarist. Instead of acknowledging reality, and trying to find a way to deal with the fact that the

student is not really even able to handle this level of playing, he is getting "high school" material; long scales with sweep picking. What possible good would that do him? If

Terry were jamming with a band, and tried to pull out those scales and run them up and down some chord progression, he would be blown away by the first teenager who came along

and just laid out a few long, slow beautiful bends with a shimmering vibrato. For Terry, right now, those scales are a bunch of meaningless crap!
In fact, as I just demonstrated a couple of simple licks, Terry's eyes got wide and he said "man, that sounds good". And it did, and it was just simple licks and bends. The job

was to get him to be able to do that. And I will tell you how I accomplished that, or I should say how Terry and I accomplished it together. But first, let me make a little

"public service announcement...
HEADS UP ALL YOU GUITAR STUDENTS OUT THERE! If you are in lessons, and you seem to be constantly "shoveling away" the mountains of material your teacher is always piling on top

of you, BUT YOU CAN'T REALLY PLAY, then you better start considering whether something is wrong with that picture. I'm telling you there is. And I have seen it so often in my

thirty years of teaching, that I am quite confident that a lot of people will be nodding their heads in agreement as they read this.
The essence of Terry's wrong approach to bends and vibrato had to do with the fact that all of his "anatomy" was working the wrong way; he was using it the wrong way. He was

trying to bend and move the string by the action of FINGER MUSCLES alone. In other words, he was actually using the muscles that extend and flex the fingers themselves. This is

how a beginner will almost always first attempt to do string bending on an electric. This is because those actions are familiar, and the actions of the muscles that SHOULD be

used are not familiar.
As Terry tried to get that string to move, he was not only using only the finger muscles, but also tensing and moving his entire shoulder. I explained to him that the muscles he

was really using to do all of that were located in his back, chest, and sides of his body. By using all these muscles in this way, the only thing that might bend would be his

spine, not the string.
So, how should it be done? Hold your hand up in front of you, palm facing you. Then, turn your hand so the palm is facing away from you, without moving at the elbow. That

twisting motion of the forearm, which is performed by muscles and bones in the forearm itself, provide the motor power for bending and vibrato on an electric guitar, NOT the

muscles that extend the fingers. The fingers are held FIRM, and simply serve to DELIVER that power to the string. That is why it is hard in the beginning, because usually the

fingers will collapse at that point; they are not strong enough to hold up under the pressure of the string as it is bent. And, as the fingers collapse, the student does the

most logical thing, tries to push the string by extending the collapsed fingers.
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