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→Half, Whole, and Other Bends
== Half, Whole, and Other Bends ==
The two most common kinds of bends are half-bends and whole-bends. A half bend raises the pitch one half-step; a whole bend raises it one whole-step. Pretty simple, right? Beyond that there are as you'd expect: 1 1/2 bends, double bends, and 2 1/2 bends. Anything beyond 1 1/2 is usually as large as you'll ever seebends are pretty rare, but and even that 1 1/2 is rare compared to whole and half bends.
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.