Originally Posted by: Guitardude61951The way Kevin described vibratos and how to mute them doesn't add up to me. When I see my heroes doing it, it seems they have their 1st through 3rd fingers all on the string they are bending for extra "strength". I'm not seeing how they are doing any muting, they can just do it.

When I do it the "regular" way, I use my 2nd and 3rd fingers, and bar the 1st and 2nd strings with my 1st finger. Its the only way I can get a good bend/vibrato to sound...

First, I'd say there isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to bend- as long as you get the sound you want, it's "right".

For myself, I bend more often with a single finger, more often with my ring finger, but at times with my middle or even first- depends where I end up and where my fingers happen to be. Sometimes, but rarely, I may have my middle finger behind the ring. It's rare that I barre while bending. Off the top of my head, only time I may bend a string while barring is maybe in a finger-picking tune, like Clap- I think there's a bend in there where I use my pinky- but of course I'm not going for vibrato (forgot the original theme of thread.)

So, getting back to vibrato, I'll push/pull across the board; how quickly depends on the sound I want. Sometimes I'll "shake" by quickly going horizontally; I'm getting the vibrato effect without changing the pitch.

As far as muting, you may not be seeing the player mute with their picking hand/palm. Alternatively, you may also not be seeing the lower strings being muted by the thumb of the fretting hand, as many players hang their thumb over the edge of the neck of the guitar- this will help in pushing/pulling on the bent string also. As for the higher strings being muted, this often occurs naturally with, say the first finger just resting (not pressing) over the string(s) not being bent. So, say you're bending the G string, your thumb hangs over the bottom E and A, you're fingering the G with the ring or middle finger, and your first finger is lightly over the high E and B strings. Take the thumb out of the equation, finger the same way, but with your picking hand, mute the low strings with the heel of your palm. Hope this clarifies/helps a bit.

As for the 3 finger bend, I'd say the curl of the 3 fingers will mute the strings that aren't fretted. If you're an accurate picker, you wont have to worry about the bottom strings, or you can mute with your palm or thumb. I just pulled my guitar out to examine how I do things, that's why I'm adding this down here. I'll also add that I sometimes bend more than one string using just my ring finger, or maybe the 1st, 2nd and 3rd finger across the board using the open A chord shape. Think SRV does this.

As for jumping up and down- nah, I'm too lazy for that. Just vigorously shake the guitar up and down. At least you can do this while sitting :D