Good playing and bends
I would relate bends to ornaments since depending on how they played they resemble portamento or glissando. However, by the sound production technique, they are more like vibrato produced across the string.
That is the reason behind my decision to put them between vibrato and ornaments.
The difference between portamento and glissando and bends, in general, lies within the range and timbre. For example, glissando can be played in one octave, ninth, tenth, and so on, which you cannot do with bends only. Besides that while playing glissando you can vary the timbre gradations with complete control. For bends, you have much less control over timbre, since the string tension is changed and the performer cannot influence that somehow.
However, that exact timbre that you get by playing bend cannot be obtained in any other way, excluding the usage of the tremolo bar (if you have got this type of bridge on your instrument), which is very similar in its coloration.
That is why in some cases it is better to play glissando or portamento, while in others it is better to go with a bend. After you played bend with its specific timbre, you can continue to play the next sound of the phrase with the same timbre employing left hand or tapping, another option is to play any ornament, vibrato, or just a sound of a certain pitch. And all this to get the richer timbre coloration without any deviation from the musical text. And not at all to make playing easier, but to make sound better.
However, only those who comprehend all of the above and have mastered this technique are able to act like this.
For others, as usual, there are stereotypes.
They know the only correct way of playing the technique and those who do it in any other way immediately get diagnosed with an inability to play bends. And the correct way in their opinion seems to be in using nearly all of the left hand fingers, because you see, otherwise you cannot reach the required pitch. It is incorrect to do it with one finger! It is so weak, no matter what and no matter whose that finger would be. And they will not listen. They will look and count fingers that are playing bend. After all, only what you see is correct. They do not like to listen. More precisely they are unable to. That is why when most of them play bends, they do it so falsely, that nothing would change if they were able to hear.
If hypothetically we consider an option in which a person wearing safety earplugs will take an untuned instrument connected to an amplifier located in another soundproof room and play bend, we can assume that this person would be playing out of tune. But if a person is able to hear what he is doing and the instrument is properly tuned, and with that, he plays bends completely out of tune, it clearly indicates the absence of an ear for music. From my own huge experience, I can assure you, that those people declare louder than others what exactly someone is not able to play and how to play correctly. By 99.9% this category of people coincides with those who play vibrato in an ugly manner and besides that, at the end of its execution, they are never able to return to the main pitch around which the vibrato should be performed. It always sounds like some kind of a pitch that you cannot find in the scale.
Everybody has heard in one way or another that someone is playing out of tune. But in reality, you cannot play out of tune. You can play in tune but badly, in tune and not so bad, in tune and very well… in tune and unrepeatable… but out of tune is not about playing at all. Out-of-tune sounds can be produced by some people who is lacking an ear for music and have got a lot of ‘knowledge’, more often obtained from the people with the same level of “musicality”. No one is ever able to explain to them what they are doing wrong since their musical deafness does not allow them to feel (to hear) the difference. But they are the best at creating stereotypes, popularizing them, and never giving them up.
Even after you connect them to a tuner (tuner is the only correct criteria for musically deaf) and it shows that their bends are far from the right pitch, they will always have something to tell you. About yourself in the first place, although you have nothing to do with that. You will immediately become “prejudiced” or “critics”, “nasty” or whatever, although their deafness was proved by the tuner.
For the sake of complete understanding, I have to remind you that all main sounds on the guitar are determined by the nuts (frets), so people lacking musical ear, by pressing at the fret will obtain some kind of a sound corresponding to that fret. And let that sound, to put it mildly, be not so exquisite, it will although not be so false, like one of those bends produced by the person from the above-mentioned category. In other words, if you play bends with your eyes and hands, you will never get them not only good but even in tune.
You will be able to play bends with the right pitch only if in the first place you have a good ear for music. Ear for music is absolutely essential for any playing technique on any instrument. However, if you play piano without an ear for music, but you have got enough musical knowledge to follow the music sheet, then everything will sound clumsy, soulless, and unmusical, but you will recognize the melody since you will be pressing on the keys. By pressing on certain keys you will activate the piano mechanics. Inside of the piano body, the mechanism is moving the hammer which hits the specific string having been strictly tuned to a certain pitch that stays unchanged.
That is why it is impossible to play sound out of scale (false) on the piano.
It is completely the other way round for the stringed instruments.
The performer is pressing on the strings directly with his fingers. On the electric guitar, by playing bends and vibrato he is intentionally changing the pitch which is fixed by the nut (fret). And here you cannot hide the absence of an ear for music. Intentionally changing the pitch to the required you either hit it precisely or demonstrate the absence of an ear for music. No other options.
While for good performance it is not enough just to play bends precisely (in tune), you have to keep in mind that playing inaccurate (out of tune) bends can be hardly called a performance at all.
And to call the playing good, the performer should execute bends with perfect precision, the correct timbre for a given phrase, dynamics, articulation, feeling, and so on.
For complete mastery over the instrument, the ability to play bends is absolutely essential!
