is this advisable?

[velvetrevolver]

ok, the story goes like this -

im playing my epiphone les paul. and recently i developed this habit of bending the neck. how do i do this?

i got my right arm on the body of the guitar (as normal) and i use my left hand to grab the headstock and pull it back. this causes a whammy-like sound similar to what u get when u use a strat's whammy bar (more or less lah)... i just wonder if this is bad for the neck. i mean, the neck could break from doing so, right? or the strings might even break... i dun mind the strings breaking, but if the neck breaks.........
and plus, i seem to like doing it so much that im pulling the headstock back real hard.

anyone does this as well? or had a neck break cos of this? pls share your views guys.. appreciate it!

 

[jmb23]

haha dude,i do the same thing to get a pitch bends on harmonics.its ok if its done to bend the pitch a little.However,there are cases of the neck snapping off
so,just take precaution

 

[heavynoize]

yea i do the same to achieve that kinda effect on the acoustic too.. just dun overdo it, it'll be fine.. i dunno about electrics but mayb u should get a real whammy bar instead.

 

[steady]

Yah, I do that too on my acoustic. The difference is, instead of pulling the head back, I push it forward.

 

[van_halen]

instead of pulling the headstock, the way to do it should be (assuming you are right handed):

right hand put on the upper left bout of les paul, left hand put behind headstock, both hands push gently simultaneously. there are youtube tutorials i think.

 

[Breen]

If Slash, Tommy Emmanuel and Redd Volkaert does it, you can too!

Another one I like to do at the end of a song on acoustic, rub & roll my wrist on the acoustic's top, it will give out a tremolo type fade.

 

[xfigox]

I think you should'nt pull the headstock anymore, thats one of the most "fragile" parts of the Les Paul mainly due to its angled headstock causing enough tension there already. Not to scare you, but this is coming from someone with a broken epi les paul headstock just from a single fall.

 

[mockingbird]

^ Hey, so did you get it glued back together?

 

[xfigox]

Nope, actually i tried but my incompetent "luthier" work couldn't make it withstand the tension so i decided to leave it as it is.

 

[EugeneSmasher]

I do a bit of neck-bending but I'm doing it less and less because if it does not damage the neck, it complicates matters for the truss rod. Who knows, it might give intonation problems, warped neck, higher action, etc and then you'll have to get it setup again.

 

[FITCH]

If Slash, Tommy Emmanuel and Redd Volkaert does it, you can too!

The difference is that...they can well afford another bro!

Anyhoo, if your songs requires whammy effect, get a guitar with tremolo or a whammy pedal. But for the occasional end-of-solo cool whammy trick, i think it should be fine

 

[mockingbird]

Yeah, sure does sound scary, breaking the neck. Cos I use an LP too. Imagine bending it and *poof*, you're holding 2 pieces of guitar in your hands. If I could easily afford another, i'll just keep bending till I break it; just to see where the limit is. But I can't. So i'll just leave it at that.