String bending is a guitar technique where fretted strings are displaced by application of a force by the fretting fingers in a direction perpendicular to their vibrating length.
String-bending allows exploration of microtonality and can be used to give a distinctive vocal articulation to lead guitar passages.
String bending is executed by fretting a note on the guitar fretboard, and then applying a force perpendicular to the length of the fretboard with the fretting hand, displacing the string from its resting vibrating position.
[1] This yields a continuous increase in pitch, which can be manipulated by a skillful player to give a singing-like quality to a musical passage.
Bending is an important component in the style of several renowned players, such as Eric Clapton, who uses copious amounts of string bending to articulate blues licks and Buck Trent, who electrified a solid body electric banjo and implemented tuner keys and D and B benders in country music.
String-bending blues-scale guitar solos were used in 1950s electric blues music where it was most notably popularized by B.B.
There are numerous mechanical and acoustic properties which heavily influence the resultant pitch from a string bend.
where L is the length of the vibrating element, T is the tension of the string prior to bending,
It is important to note that the resultant pitch from string bending is not linearly correlated with the bending angle, and so a player's experience and intuition is important for accurate pitch modulation.