Guitar Solos – Pt.11 – Unison Bends

Hi there,

Thanks again for reading the blogs – if you like them please share the links to your friends!

The next chapter in this improv series talks about how to integrate Unison bends into your playing.
Unison bends are used in millions of songs to provide a different type of bend to your standard semitone, tone or 1 1/2 tone bends.

A Unison is where you play 2 notes of the exact same pitch. I.e. 5th fret of the B (2nd) string and the open E (1st) string.

A Unison bend is where you strike 2 strings, the top string is playing say an E (12th fret) and the B string you’d play a D (15th fret) and bend the B string to reach the E.

The most common places on the neck where these are performed are on the G (3rd) and B (2nd) strings and B and E (1st) strings. Here are some examples

The sound it produces sounds great and can be used lots in your riff making and lead playing.
To really integrate it into your playing, practice going up and down your scales using these. For example here is the G major scale (G, A, B, C, D, E, F#) using the unison bend shape on the E and B strings.

Here’s another example of using the notes of the A minor pentatonic (A, C, D, E, G) using unison bends:

Practice this using all your scales in all the various shapes and positions.

Many thanks for reading
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL
James

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