I know a guy who was playing at a talent show and it was him and another guy competing. Kind of like a rock off. The other guy was insanely fast, shredding away, playing paul gilbert style, but he wasn't accurate and sounded quite slippy. I'm not saying he was bad, I was impressed, but there was no real emotion in his playing. Then my friend came on. The crowd was expecting something mental and when he started playing they looked very disappointed as he was playing slow. Now you've got to understand he's one of the best players I know and he can play fast, but he chose to do it differently. He was getting his bends perfectly right. It sounded amazing and very professional. His guitar was singing. This proves that speed isn't the most important thing. Take David Gilmour for an example.
There aren't many things you can do to improve the emotion of your playing and accuracy of your bends, but there is one thing that definitely works. My guitar teacher (genius) showed me this a few years ago and I still practice it. You choose a scale and a note within it, play it and listen to the pitch. then go half a step back and try to bend it from there to the original pitch. For example in Em you go to the 15th fret, play it and listen. Then go to the 14th fret and bend it to the original pitch. Make sure it's right and the sound doesn't die before you release the bend which would mean you're not applying enough pressure. Continue doing that with different notes in the scale. That technique is used by the best guitarists.
If you can't bend your strings high enough you just need more practice on the difficult bends.
This is the wonderful exercise for bends:
This is the wonderful exercise for bends:
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