Until I get the real thing, how do I fake it?

I haven't saved the money yet to get a b-bender, but in the mean time, the band I starrted with has an album coming out on the guy that recorded guitar on a couple of the songs used a b-bender alot! Is there any trick to "similating" a b-bender until I can afford the real thing? I'm probably going to get a Hipshot until I can afford a Nashville Tele with a Parson/green.

Only thing I can think of is behind the nut bends...but its ver limited..can get a steel like sound with the proper technique....but Im not sure it can be a 100 percent substitution...

Only thing I can think of is pedal steel licks and behind the nut bends.

Say you're in the key of C and want to go to F. Just finger the C note on the 1st string at the 8th fret with your pinky, and the G note on the 2nd string with your ring finger on the same fret. Then you just add the middle finger to the 2nd string and bend it up a whole tone. You'll hear a standard B-Bender lick. If you do it at the 12th fret it's the same as the starting of the bender solo on "Peaceful Easy Feeling" by the Eagles.

Another move is using the key of A for an example go to fret 9 with your pinky on the 1st string. Then go to fret 8 on the 2nd string with your ring finger. Then with the help of your middle finger you can push the string up a whole tone for another bender sounding move. What you're doing is bringing a dom.7 to a root. You heard this one a lot on the Ricky Skaggs country things from the eighties & early nineties.

That's just a couple but if you'll look you can find some neat things......JH in Va.

Have a friend bend the B string over the nut while you play.

Hop over to Youtube and check out Sol Philcox and some of the chicken pickin lessons, there is a lot of really cool lessons that you can put your own spin on. Very helpful....:cool:

Who are ya playing with?! Some licks fit certain things better than others.

Johnny Isaacs

Is this the Johnny Isaacs that used to play around the San Antonio area? I used to play with Jimmy Cribb at Floore's Country Store. Now I'm playing with the Rick Miller Band. The one post about using 9th fret on the high E and 8th fret on the B string then bending the B up a whole step has helped me a lot already! The song is in G so I moved it down two frets, and there is one lick in the solo when it goes to the C that is up on the 11th and 12th frets. Basically the same type thing. That same part went on to do a bend with the with both E and B strings on the 8th fret bending the B up, and then e string on the 7th and B string on the 6th Fret bending the B again. Then it went back up to the 11th and 12th frets and did this thing were he started bent up a whole step on the B string 11th fret, hit the E string 12th fret and let the bend out and then hit the E string 13th fret and same thing with the B string. 11th fret pre-bent and let it out. He did that back and forth a couple of times before resolving that part with a regular, non-bender run. If you try it out and get the idea of what I'm trying to get across, it's pretty neat sounding. I hope I discribed it well enough!

Amos Garrett or not but he's the dude who did the great solo years ago on Maria Muldair's "Midnight at the Oasis". He was a master of double stop bender like licks. Here's a couple that are movable to other keys so I'll do 'em in the key of A (fifth fret position)

The first is a sweet intro or turnaround which you uses the 2nd and 3rd strings. First you start with the 1st finger on the 2nd string at the 5th fret and the middle finger on string 3 at the 6th fret. Play those two notes together using a pick and finger or two fingers. Then go to fret 7 with the the 2nd string using your ring finger and the 3rd string with your middle finger. Play those two notes and slide to the 8th fret doing the same thing again then slide to the 9th fret. When you're at the 9th fret play both strings together and then bend both of them. You'll hear that if you're using a standard gauge of strings such as a set of 9's or 10's that the 2nd string will raise a half tone and the 3rd string will raise a tone. It's almost a pedal steel sound but still guitar flavored and can add some fluidity to you playing.

Another way to use this is in what ever key you're in (E for example) at the 9th fret. Finger the 2nd string with the ring finger and the 3rd with the middle finger. If you're going to an A chord during a tune from the E just bend those two strings. For some added texture you can even play the 1st string E open as a drone. It's sort of a Cajun feel doing that. You can find many uses for this little lick.

Another way to go from an A to a D chord is to play the 1st string at the 9th fret and the 3rd string at the 9th fret also, I usually use my ring finger on the 1st and the middle on the 3rd. Then you just bend both of the strings till you hear the D come in. You'll be bending the C# on string one to a D and the E note to an F#...............JH in Va.

Would volume swells help in this case?

Randy, You can get a dang Hipshot for around $150, and have it up and running in a half hour, or so. That would be the easiest way to go. Kind of painless at that price too!

Didn't Pauly have a thing to stick onto the guitar to give it instant bender status ?
Ask Telesavant ( Paul ) about his creation , and see how much it is . Don't think it was very expensive .

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/members/telesavant.html

Maybe someone can find a link to it .

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/attachments/b-bender-forum/10126d1206790738-bender-something-else-dscn08781048-jpg

If you're going to get a Tele with a Parsons-Green eventually I'd suggest a Higgins Peg Bender over the Hipshot. Either one will serve the purpose, but the Higgins will be far more like the movement you use playing a Parsons-Green. Even getting used to the slightly-longer throw of the PG you'll adjust in minutes...it's exactly the same motion.

But I don't really see why you would do the Parsons-Green thing. If you have a Tele you like, have an Evans Pullstring installed. It'll cost you less that a whole new guitar (that you might or might not like), give you 3 choices of throw length and complete control over the tension of the pull. I've been playing the crazy gadgets 30 years or so and IMO there's no better unit; I'm really glad Dave decided to start making them again!

I'd go for the Higgins peg bender. Simple to install and works really well. I use one.