Guys (and gals), I just had a really freaky insight. I was working on the David Gilmore lesson, and happened to be staring off into space while I played. Space this time happened to be my feet. Not sure why. As it happened though, next to my foot was my trusty Boss TU-2 tuner. And for once it was turned on. I almost always turn it off while I play, but today it was on.

So I'm bending a note, and I discovered that the tuner is fast enough to keep up with the bend. You can actually see exactly how close you are to getting the right bend. It isn't quick enough to use in real-time, but when practicing you can use it to quickly measure your accuracy on the bend.

I played through a couple of things slowly and discovered that I have a lot to work on with my bends, but now I have a way to accurately measure my progress.

In case it helps, I run my TU-2 connected to the pre-amp output of my amplifier, so it doesn't sit in between my guitar and the actual main amp component. I've chosen not to pass the signal back through the effect loop for now, it was introducing more noise than I liked.

Yeah I used to practice bends a lot with the tuner, it can be useful.
The only thing I'll say though is, try to develop your ears to the point where you can bend to the right pitch, then check the tuner to make sure your right. Don't rely on the tuner to get the bend right or you'll never learn it properly!

David

I practised simple bends using unison bending. That way you pay more atention on what you hear insted of tuner.

This is a cool idea !! For beginners it will be easy to see how much they need to bend that string..Now I'm thinking , I saw once a really fast tuner , almost instantaneously reacts (and has a niddle)...If he could keep up in real time that would be cool to watch

Yeah I discovered this myself a couple weeks ago on the tuner that came with my toneport GX (software tuner). It is really cool. Ivan, by "unison bending" do you mean bending a note up and then playing the corresponding note the next string up, so that you have a static reference point for how in tune your bend is? If thats what you mean I use that too.

I haven't really practiced using the tuner, but I do check every now and then to see how I'm doing. I usually get.reasonably close, it's nice to have that confirmation.

Yes, unison bending means just that. It helps develop your ear more. But it is an interesting idea with tuner for sure

I used to use unison bending too, but found it annoying when a bend obscured the string I was about to use for comparison. The tuner thing just seems easier. I wouldn't want to rely on it as a visual aid while bending, but it is very nice to be able to glance down and confirm that I got it roughly right.

This whole discovery led me to realise that I am consistently bending my notes at least a semi-tone short of the mark about half the time. That's a long way off!