Originally posted by SLY
I think you should consider less gauge strings , if you go on pressing harder to make the notes sound cleaner you'll have problems playing faster.

If you're sure that some strength is what you need , the best way to get that is doing string bending exercises for each indiviual finger and in any combinations you know ... I'm not talking about full step bending , you'll have to go at least 2 steps (4 frets) and up to 8 or 9 frets bending (the 8 frets bending doesn't have to work on every place on the fretboard or every string).

This is interesting for me because even though I've been playing for 5 years and have done several semiprofessional gigs I've only just recently (like this month) started seriously working on bending.

What I'm wondering is, how can you bend that far without breaking a string? How much does the string gauge make a difference? Because if I try much more than 3 fret bends on my guitar it's very difficult and it feels like something's going to go. My guitar isn't set up very well, but still..

I used to think those big sweeping bends were done with the aid of a whammy bar (I've never owned a guitar with one), but now I'm not so sure.