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The History of String Bending?
I'm just guessing, but I would think string bending (as opposed to vibrato) was first done by somebody fumbling around, maybe with poor technique? And maybe someone thought that it actually sounded cool, especially if you bend to an actual note.
I'm guessing it was originally frowned upon, which reminds me of those warnings on old amps about not turning up too loud to avoid feedback / distortion Any way, I have no idea what the actual history of string bending is: Who first did it? Who popularised it? How was it originally used in music? What genre(s) of music was it first used in? etc. |
#2
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Good question! It's obviously a blues thing, and I'd guess it started with instrumentalists imitating blues singers. Blues is a vocal music, and employs a scale which naturally bends the fixed notes of western music (it's a combination of African and European folk practices, beginning probably in the late 19th century).
Obviously when instruments play the blues, they try to imitate the voice. Pianists obviously can't do it, but horns (trumpets, saxes, etc) can, and guitars certainly can. In the earliest jazz and blues recordings you hear it being done. It's not breaking any rules - it's following the rules of blues - and I doubt very much that someone discovered it by mistake and thought "hey that's cool". They were trying to sound like blues singers.
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#3
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#4
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I suspect the "between notes" aspect is based on those folk scales which may not be tempered like keyboard instruments, use microtones which divide up the octave into more steps, or may be based on degrees of "out of tuneness" sourness used for effect.
B. B. King, a master of finger vibrato said he learned to do it to copy his relative Bukka White's bottleneck slide-guitar playing. Slide playing in blues is another way to get those microtones. Of course vibrato wasn't invented by American blues players (though most of us guitarists sure owe them a debt). String players, many who play fretless instruments have been using it for years. And besides voice, other folk instruments around the world allow it (sitars with raised frets for example).
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#5
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#6
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I believe that both Eddie Lang and Django Reinhardt were bending strings in the 20's... Django, famously not on a blues tune... I think that both of these men were the ones who popularized string bending in a jazz format...
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#7
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I know the history of blues singing goes back a lot longer than anything played on the guitar, and when guitarists started playing blues I'm sure they would have imitated that blues singing sound in their music, as JonPR said. So as far as popularisation goes, I guess the answer is the early blues players. It's fascinating to imagine something going from not existing (or not being widely known) to becoming popular. |