Can someone explain this to me??

[Fassa Albrecht]

Can anyone explain to me simply what it meant by the 'hammer-on' and 'bend/pre-bend' techniques. My bass instruction books give two seperate instructions!

[slackerdefined]

a hammer on is when you fret a note, pluck it, and then use another finger on your fretting hand to press another fret on the same string without plucking again.

A bend is when you slide the string left or right along the frets as you're playing it.

[uturnbass]

sliding left and right? hmm...
I think of a bend as in, bending the string to give it a vibrato-ish sound.

[lemur821]

A pre-bend is when you bend and hold the string before plucking it.

EDIT: And a bend is when you either pull the string towards the floor or push it towards the ceiling (this description assumes your neck is level-ish).

[Depth_Charge]

Originally Posted by Fassa Albrecht

Can anyone explain to me simply what it meant by the 'hammer-on' and 'bend/pre-bend' techniques. My bass instruction books give two seperate instructions!

You can also hammer on an open string. Hit an open E, then fret F#, then G. You'll hear 3 tone shifts for the one pluck.

And if you held the F#, then let go and let the E ring out, thats called a "pull off".

A bend is pluck, then bend the string up. You can bend a note a quarter, a half, or a full tone. Maybe more, I've never gone that high.

A pre-bend is bent then back to natural. I like pre-bending a semi tone, then releasing and bending it back to a full tone sometimes.

On a fretless, you can use really tiny movements to give a virbato effect too. I can't really do it on a fretted. I bet someone else can though.