Jeff Beck was a master of string bends and the whammy bar – and this masterclass in his ‘blues and beyond’ guitar style will make your solos more expressive

Jeff Beck was a one-off talent – innovative and exciting at every step of his long career, and one of the best to ever pick up a guitar.

Born in 1944, he played a big part in the rise of British blues. His music from those early years demonstrates a serious study and deep connection to tradition, all delivered with a youthful energy and masterful touch. 

While his music from this period was fairly strict to the genre, he wasn’t one to ever stay in the same place for too long. The 1970s saw him push the boundaries of his early blues influences and delve into psychedelic rock and jazz-rock fusion, experimenting with altered harmony and odd time signatures. 

His music was always evolving and he was constantly looking for new, exciting sounds, but his devotion to the blues remained. His ‘blues and beyond’ approach saw him take the music to new heights and greater levels of creativity than arguably anyone else ever has, before or since.

The expression and articulation he achieved really stood out, and he played in an incredibly passionate and emotive way. In order to capture some of this intensity and transfer it to our own playing, attention to detail and a focus on the many techniques he employed are required. 

Jeff was known, among other things, for his use of the whammy bar, so to really capture his sound, a guitar with a floating vibrato would be best. Although you will be able to get a close approximation without one.

Listen to Jeff playing a Telecaster, for example, and you would be forgiven for thinking he was using a whammy bar. He would often apply articulations to single notes with either the bar or the fretting hand and would bend up or down to the desired pitch.

This could come in the form of depressing the bar before striking the string and then releasing it, or pre-bending a note with a fretting hand and then dropping it down after picking it.

There are accounts of him playing entire melodies this way (indeed, Steve Lukather confirmed it to our own Jason Sidwell), which takes some serious control of intonation. Jeff didn’t use a pick, which allowed him greater control of the bar as all of his fingers were at his disposal.

It also freed him up to use the volume and tone controls, another of Jeff’s strengths. He would manipulate these throughout solos and even within licks to create tonal variations and increase sustain on single notes; just another example of his creative use of what the instrument has to offer. 

The two solos presented here touch upon some of the techniques that Jeff favoured, but I would strongly recommend you explore his back catalogue to get a full picture of an undoubtably masterful musician. 

Get the toneAmp Settings: Gain 8, Bass 6, Middle 7, Treble 5, Reverb 3

Jeff used a number of guitars but is most associated with a Fender Stratocaster into a Marshall amplifier. You will need plenty of midrange and lots of gain on tap, which can be controlled with the guitar’s volume for cleaner sounds. A ‘mid-hump’ style overdrive pedal can help reach that extra level of sustain, and a touch of reverb will add a bit of depth.

Study 1Our first track is a funky, fusion-style groove, inspired by Jeff’s 1970s work. It demonstrates his hot-rodded blues style, delivered within a rockier, fusion context. Notice how there are some specific string-bending techniques that are an important part of capturing this sound.

Notably, pre-bends into downward bends, sometimes employed with the first finger, which give the illusion of a whammy bar or slide and can be difficult to master. 

Our last lick uses open-string pull-offs. The three-note pattern is disguised by the 16th-note rhythm, which gives this lick an exciting,  disjointed quality before the final dive-bomb.

Study 2This track has a blues shuffle/triplet feel. There is more whammy bar work and various approaches to his trademark quick note flurries. 

We also see how Jeff would achieve variety in tones through manipulation of the guitar’s volume, from the clean sound in the opening licks to the screaming gain in the final bars, all achieved with one amp sound. Our suggested settings are a good guide, but all guitars are different, so experiment to see what works best. 

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