Benders Lesson by ALMOSTACOWBOY

I thought I would add a little information about benders
on electric guitars in country music. It can help add a great "twang" 
to your county lead playing. I use one on each of my Tele's and love 
to use it for cool effects. 
First a little background:

There are several types of benders out there. The most common and well known is the 
'B' Bender. This is basically just a device attached to an electric guitar 
(typically a telecaster style) that allows the player to raise the pitch
of just the 'B' String either a half or whole step. When 
played in conjunction with the adjacent E and/or G strings
you can use this to accomplish a twangy or peddle steel sound. FYI, peddle steel guitars are basically just like normal electric guitars except that they are tuned differently and have an array of foot pedals and knee levers used to raise the pitch of individual or combinations of strings. Now, with a B Bender, a conventional guitarist can play some "steel" sounding licks. 

Clarence White is credited for inventing  Benders for guitars when he helped create the Parsons-White bender and used it on some of his classic work with The Byrds. His device was a a spring mechanism loaded inside the guitar in a routed out cavity. It attached the b string thru the body up to the top strap knob. Using this type of bender, the guitarist pulls down on the guitar (toward the floor) and the strap button pulls the B string up in pitch. Fender 
sells a modern version of this guitar in its Nashville B Bender Telecaster (for around $1K). Along with the Parsons-White, there are other versions of the B Bender including
Glaser and several companies that sell custom units or will 
build one into an existing guitar. There are also G bender guitars available as well as G/B benders. The G bend is activated by pushing the guitar away from your chest. 

Most country guitarists have adopted the B Bender as standard equipment (Paisley, Mason, etc.) and it 
can be heard all over count