PULLSTRINGS
January 18th 1972: American country-folk-rock band The Byrds on the eve of the 1972 Midem Festival at Cannes. Skip Battin (rear), Gene Parsons (left), Clarence
White (right) and Roger McGuinn (front). Photo by Michael Webb/Keystone/Getty Images
Although the term “B-Bender”
refers to a specific string-bending
mechanism developed in the sixties by Gene Parsons for Clarence
White, it has since become an
eponym, encompassing all of the
contraptions that allow guitarists
the freedom to bend strings by
specific amounts without worrying about left-hand logistics.
With various implementations of
a simple lever, players are free to
tackle precise bends within complex chord shapes and ear-piquing
double-stops – many of which
would be unattainable, short of
learning the pedal steel.
The benders available today run the
gamut from the relatively non-invasive
Hipshot – requiring little more than
removing and reinstalling the rear strap
button and a fresh set of strings – to the
Parsons/White system, which requires a
skilled installer to remove a good-sized
chunk of wood from the body. Other
notable systems – such as those from
designers Joe Glaser and Charlie McVay
– are similar to the Parsons/White in being
irreversible propositions for the guitar in
question while requiring comparitively
less-invasive installations.
Whatever they’re called, in the hands of
skilled pickers, bender-equipped axes can
melt minds. A nearly imperceptible shrug
becomes the basis for a dead-on Ralph
Mooney impersonation. A neck being
pushed away from the player – looking like
a simple strap adjustment – produces an
incredible-sounding one-up/one-down bend
that is impossible to replicate on a standard
guitar. If you’re looking for a new way to
wow your bandmates, look no further.
The Parsons Project
The overall way in which the effect is
achieved is common to all of the systems
– a mechanical bending of a specific string
or strings by a predetermined amount
allows the fretting hand to remain station-
ary (or not). When picking up a B-Bender
equipped guitar for the first time, it takes
a while to wrap your head around the
need to rely on chord shapes instead of
familiar modes and scales, but once the
light goes on, you’ll be resolving A-shaped
add 9 chord fragments to vanilla voicings
and back in no time. A short while later
– after realizing how much work and effort
is needed to truly master a pull-string gui-
tar – you’ll wonder who had the chops to
need one in the first place.
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