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'''Bending ''' is a technique used to increase the pitch of a note by increasing the string tension. It involves pushing or pulling a resonating string towards the sides of the fretboard while maintaining contact with the fret, sliding the string against the fret.
Bending is represented in tab by the letters ''b'', ''h'', and ''r'', which stand for ''bend'', ''hold'', and ''release''.
A special case is the 1/4 bend. This is common in blues playing - it bends the note halfway between the current note and the note one half-step higher. Since this pitch isn't inside the chromatic scale and playable on the guitar without bending, it's difficult to practice bending the note to exactly the right pitch. But generally, it's not worth worrying about - a 1/4 bend is almost never sustained but used to lead into another note. You start the bend a little late in the note duration and switch to the next note before actually reaching the 1/4 step pitch.
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== Pain ==
So practice both ways.
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== Adjacent Strings ==
Another thing to notice is that for big bends towards the middle of the fretboard, you may start pushing on 2 or more adjacent strings. For example, doing a double bend on the B string at the 12th fret might push into the G ''and'' D strings. This will add increased tension to the bend making it more difficult. I don't find this is a serious problem - you just have to push harder. If you find it a problem, you should try to develop a technique where you can force your fretting finger(s) under those strings, so that you don't have to push them (as much).
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== Reinforcement from Other Fingers ==
Notice this is not possible with the index finger - those are the hardest (and rarest) bends.
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== Good Technique ==
Try all of those out. The key is to be able to bend slow and fast, and be able to change speed inside a single bend.
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== Reverse Bends ==
The bend itself seems to tell a story - all the movement from one pitch to the next has more content than simply playing two notes.
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== Tuning ==
The only other solution I know of is to get an Evertune bridge, which detects and manipulates the tension of each string to keep it in-tune.
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== Homework ==
* [[Vibrato]]
* [[Blues]]
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[[Category:Guitar]]