Come As You Are - Nirvana

We look at the technique of string bending, which is probably the most essential thing that's really specific to lead guitar playing. You have to bend strings in a very specific way to make sure that we don't hurt our hand and to make sure we're getting it to sound right. But this is also perhaps the most expressive technique that gives the most awesome sounds with lead guitar playing. I'm going to be learning a very easy solo by Nirvana.

String Bending Technique

We're going to play the ninth fret of string three with the third finger, but we're going to support this which means put down other fingers - second finger and first finger. I've heard this called the "giant first finger." We want these three fingers to act like one finger. Little finger is not going to get used but keep it somewhere close by. We need our thumb on top because we need something to push up against, but really we're not going to push up at all - we're going to twist or pivot around this thumb.

The Handshake Grip

Imagine you're going in for a handshake with your fretting hand to the guitar neck - that is what we need to do. Go in for that handshake and how you grip the guitar neck like that. My thumb is just sat on top. Fret string three fret nine, support with the middle and first finger. Get used to these positions - have the elbow into the side, fingers curled over right on their tips as you normally would, but we're still in that handshake position which puts our fingers on this angle. My fingers are pointing towards my strumming hand shoulder.

The Pivot Motion

Keep your fingers still and move your wrist up, which causes this pivot to happen. My wrist comes up above the guitar neck and then back down. My wrist is down low basically level, not really bent at all, and then the wrist moves up and the fingers move with it. That is the correct string bending technique. We're using fingers one, two and three all as one giant finger to push it up together. We need a good amount of chord playing experience for the strength to be able to do this.

The Riff

To play the riff itself, slide with the first finger from the fourth fret to fret seven, then hit the third finger down, then go for the bend. Sliding all on string three. This slide is a really cool technique to get down. I'm changing the settings on my Boss Katana to be more grunge with the lead setting, which gives us more gain and most importantly sustain. We do these three notes three times, then the bend - put the middle finger down, first finger down, thumb over the top and push up with the wrist, not the fingers. Let's play along to some chords at 50% tempo and 75%. String bending is not easy if it's new to you - give it time. If it's just not happening, you can slide two frets from ninth to 11th instead.