How To Make A Crying Guitar Sound
There are many different ways in which you can make a crying sound with your guitar. You could use guitar techniques, effects, special techniques where you play with your tone pick-up selector, etc. In the tab below you will find the most natural way to perform this crying sound, without using any effect pedals or anything fancy but just a guitar. First we’ll look at the techniques that you should be able to know to make your guitar cry.
The Two Most Important Techniques To Play Expressive Blues Guitar Solos
There are two techniques that you should be able to execute correctly; vibrato and string bends. If you have total expressive control over these two techniques then your guitar playing is already advanced (in this area) and will not lack any expressional qualities. So these techniques are very important to develop correctly.
However if we combine these two techniques, we have the ability to produce an even more expressive sound. We call this technique 'bend vibrato’.
The Technique That Will Make Your Guitar Produce That Crying Sound
To perform this ‘crying guitar’ sound we’ll need this combined ‘bend vibrato‘ technique (preferably played on the high e-string). The crying guitar sound is very noticeable in blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan’s style. Listen to how he is able to put tons of emotion into every note by using this bend vibrato technique that you’ll see in the guitar tab below.
Take a listen:
Listen to this bend vibrato technique
When you perform the string bend it’s important that you use all three fingers; don’t only use your ring finger, but let the index and middle finger help out by also bending up that string. In this way you’ll have more control over the string. When the bending reaches its target note (which would be the E-note in this case), add a medium-width vibrato to this bended note. While performing the vibrato, it’s important that you keep on hitting the string several times. This requires some practice, but by breaking down everything in steps you’ll be able to perform this technique faster.
So let’s break it down in to manageable steps you can practice separately, before putting it all together (this strategy of breaking down complex techniques or exercises into smaller chunks is one of the ‘secrets’ that master musicians use to build and maintain their technique).
Step 1: Bend Up The String To The Correct Pitch
It’s important that you hit the correct pitch if the string is bended, because if you bend up the string too high or low in pitch then it will sound out of tune and adding vibrato will only make matters worse.
Step 2: Add Vibrato To The Bended String
Once you have reached the target pitch of the bend, we are going to add vibrato to this bended note. There are a couple of different variations of vibrato that we can use on a bended note, but the easiest one to get into is the bend vibrato where you bend the string up to the correct pitch and then release the bend just a little bit before pressing up to the target pitch again.
Look at the image below where the horizontal blue lines present the notes. The highest line is our target note, so as you can see if we bend up the string (the pitch of the bending is presented here by the red line) we are hitting our target note almost directly (1).
From that point we’re going to release the string a bit again (2), before pushing it up to the target note again (3). This motion between slightly releasing the string and pushing it back up towards the target note in a continuous motion is what will produce the bend vibrato.
Step 3: Hit The String Multiple Times
To add even more drama to this bend vibrato, hit the high e-string with several upstrokes while you’re performing the bend vibrato.
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