Phrasing · Reference
Articulation & expression, as a working reference
Every expressive move a fretting or picking hand can make, tied back to what it actually does to the sound — pitch, volume, timbre or duration — and how gain and compression change the way it reads. This is the vocabulary the tone forge already speaks; here it is laid out so you can sort it, filter it, and use it on purpose.
Once you know which technique you want, dial in the tone that flatters it — or fuse two styles and hear how the same technique reads differently in each.
Get this one right
Vibrato modulates pitch. Tremolo modulates volume.
That is the whole rule — and it is also the rule Fender's own product names break, which is the reason players confuse it for six decades running.
Leo Fender's 1954 Stratocaster hand vibrato — the bridge unit that lets you rock a bar to bend all six strings' pitch up and down — shipped labelled a “synchronized tremolo.” It bends pitch, so by definition it is a vibrato mechanism. “Tremolo arm,” “trem bar” and “whammy bar” are simply what the name became.
Fender's amplifiers went the other way. The onboard “vibrato” channel on amps such as the Vibrolux or a blackface-era Twin is an electronic circuit that pulses the signal's volume up and down at a steady rate — which, again by definition, is tremolo. Same company, both names swapped, and the swap is now the entire industry's vocabulary.
Bar under your picking hand = vibrato (pitch). Amp channel or pedal that pulses loudness = tremolo (volume). Verified directly against Fender's own technical articles — see the source ledger below.
The ledger
Nineteen moves, sortable
Click any column to sort. Use the filters to isolate a hand, a modulation type, or search for a word. Every row is written to be genre-agnostic — the forge fills in the genre-specific numbers.
| Technique | Modulates | Hand | Gain & compression | Flattering setting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Staccato | Duration (shortens) | Fretting or picking hand (early release/mute) | High gain and heavy compression sustain the tail into the silence a staccato note needs — keep both light. | Clean to low gain, minimal compression |
| Legato | Timbre (removes pick attack) | Fretting hand (hammer-ons/pull-offs replace picking) | Moderate gain compensates for a hammered note's weaker attack; too much compression flattens the natural dynamic fade between notes. | Warm mid-gain, sustain-friendly |
| Hammer-on | Pitch (ascends, unpicked) | Fretting hand | Needs enough gain or compression for the unpicked note to speak — weak on low-gain clean. | Mid-to-high gain, or compressed clean |
| Pull-off | Pitch (descends, unpicked) | Fretting hand (plucks on release) | Same as hammer-on — gain/compression evens out the naturally quieter pulled note. | Mid-to-high gain, or compressed clean |
| Slide / glissando | Pitch (continuous glide between two notes) | Fretting hand (finger slides while pressed) | Sustain from gain or compression keeps the slide audible for its whole travel instead of decaying mid-glide. | Higher gain or compressed clean, long sustain |
| Portamento | Pitch (stepless glide, as effect) | Fretting hand, or whammy bar | Same sustain logic as a slide. | Sustain-forward settings |
| Bend | Pitch (raises toward a target note) | Fretting hand (pushes/pulls across the neck) | Gain sustains the bent note to its target; compression smooths the volume bump from added string tension. | Mid-to-high gain, light-to-moderate compression |
| Blue note (quarter-tone bend) | Pitch (~quarter-tone, between scale degrees) | Fretting hand | Same as a standard bend — sustain lets the microtonal target register clearly. | Blues/lead gain, expressive vibrato after landing |
| Vibrato | Pitch (oscillates around a centre note) | Fretting hand (finger/wrist), or a whammy bar (picking hand) | Works at any gain; more sustain makes subtle depth last longer. Heavy compression can mask a light touch. | Any — sustain-friendly for lead and blues |
| Trill | Pitch (rapid alternation of two adjacent notes) | Fretting hand | Benefits from the same gain/compression lift as hammer-ons and pull-offs, so both notes speak evenly. | Mid-high gain, or compressed clean |
| Tremolo picking | Duration/texture (simulates sustain via rapid re-picking of one note — the older, classical sense of “tremolo”) | Picking hand (fast alternate picking) | Higher gain smooths the individual pick attacks into one continuous texture; low gain exposes each attack. | High gain (tremolo-picked riffing), or clean with spring reverb (surf) |
| Palm muting | Timbre (dampens overtones) and duration (shortens) | Picking hand (palm heel rests near the bridge) | High gain plus a tight noise gate is what turns a mute into a percussive “chug” instead of a soft thud. | High-gain rock/metal with a gate, or soft clean for funk/surf |
| Ghost / dead notes | Timbre/volume (percussive, deliberately indeterminate pitch) | Both — fretting hand lightly touches, picking hand strikes | Compression makes ghost notes sit at a more even, audible level without turning them into full notes. | Compressed clean, low gain (funk) |
| Rake | Timbre (percussive scrape before the target note) | Picking hand (drags across muted strings), fretting hand mutes | Higher gain exaggerates the scrape into a growl; too much can bury the target note under the noise. | Mid-high gain rock/blues lead |
| Natural harmonic | Timbre (bell-like) and pitch (sounds an overtone) | Picking hand strikes while fretting hand touches lightly at 12th/7th/5th fret | Moderate gain/compression sustains a naturally quiet, fast-decaying harmonic without triggering unwanted feedback. | Clean to mid-gain, some compression |
| Pinch harmonic | Timbre (adds a squeal) and pitch (overtone set by contact point) | Picking hand (thumb/pick edge touches the string just after picking) | High gain is close to mandatory — it is what lets the harmonic sustain and squeal rather than die out. | High gain, bridge humbucker |
| Drone | None directly — a fixed reference pitch the other modulations are heard against | Often an open string; fretting hand may hold one note while picking alternates | Sustain-forward gain/compression keeps the drone present throughout the phrase. | High-sustain ambient, doom, drone-metal tones |
| Whammy / dive-bomb | Pitch (extreme mechanical vibrato, plunging downward) | Picking hand operates the bar; fretting hand may mute | High gain and a gate are typical — the pitch instability reads as effect, not error, against a controlled backdrop. | High gain, gated, often a locking tremolo bridge |
| Sweep picking | Duration/density (fits more notes in less time) and timbre (one continuous stroke, smoother than alternate picking) | Picking hand (single sweep across strings), fretting hand rolls to prevent ringing | Moderate-high gain smooths and sustains the arpeggio; too much blurs notes together without a tight gate. | Mid-high gain lead, tight gate |
| Tapping | Pitch (extends range/speed beyond fretting-hand-only reach) | Both hands (picking hand hammers directly onto the fretboard) | Gain/compression is close to required — a tapped note has no pick attack at all and is naturally quiet. | High gain, compressed, sustain-forward |
19 techniques · tap a column header to sort · tapping popularised in rock by Eddie Van Halen — the two-hand technique itself predates him.
FAQ
Good to know
What is the actual difference between vibrato and tremolo?
What is a blue note?
Does gain change how these techniques read?
Sources
- Fender, “Pitch or Volume? The Difference Between Tremolo and Vibrato,” fender.com/articles/techniques/pitch-or-volume-the-difference-between-tremolo-and-vibrato — the naming-inversion history and the pitch-vs-volume definition. Accessed 26 Jul 2026.
- Fender, “Pitch Control: A Tremolo Primer,” fender.com/articles/techniques/pitch-control-a-tremolo-primer — mechanical vibrato-bridge mechanics. Accessed 26 Jul 2026.
- Fender Play, glossary entries for hammer-on, pull-off, legato, staccato, bend, vibrato, trill and tapping, fender.com/play/lessons/glossary-hammer-on (and sibling glossary pages) — baseline technique definitions. Accessed 26 Jul 2026.
- GuitarPlayer, “The True Blue Notes: How to Find Them on Your Guitar,” guitarplayer.com/lessons/the-true-blue-notes-how-to-find-them-on-your-guitar — the quarter-tone blue-note bend, located between the flat and natural 3rd/7th. Accessed 26 Jul 2026.
- The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Macmillan) — entries for “portamento” and “glissando,” the classical distinction between a stepless glide and movement through discrete pitches, which guitarists commonly collapse into one “slide.”