Dive bomb (guitar technique)

Dive bomb is a guitar technique in which the tremolo bar, or whammy bar is used to rapidly lower the pitch of a note, creating a sound considered to be similar to a bomb dropping.

Other musicians who used this technique are Ritchie Blackmore, Dave Murray, Herman Li, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Brian May, Joe Satriani and Tom Scholz of Boston.

This allows the guitarist to pick a note, and widely vary its tone, either by quickly pushing (or pulling) the bar as far as it goes either way or slowly moving the bar in the desired direction, depending on what effect the musician is trying to achieve.

It is commonly done in combination with a pinch harmonic to get a more dramatic effect with the dive bomb.

The bass line at the end of The Rolling Stones' "19th Nervous Breakdown" is an example of dive bombing.