Pitch bend facts for kids

A pitch bend is a cool musical effect. It makes one note smoothly slide up or down to another note. Imagine a singer sliding their voice between notes, or a guitarist bending a string to change the sound. That's a pitch bend! It adds a lot of expression and feeling to music.

What is a Pitch Bend?

A pitch bend changes the pitch (how high or low a note sounds) of a musical note. Instead of jumping from one note to the next, the sound smoothly glides. This creates a unique effect that can make music sound more emotional or exciting.

How is it Used in Music?

You can hear pitch bends in many types of music. They are very common in rock music, especially with electric guitars. Guitarists use a technique called "string bending" to create this effect. Pitch bends are also often used in electronic music and video game soundtracks. They help make sounds more interesting and dynamic.

Pitch Bends and MIDI Technology

In modern music, pitch bends are also a technical term used with MIDI. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It's a way for electronic musical instruments and computers to talk to each other. When you use a pitch bend on a digital keyboard, it sends a MIDI message to tell the sound to slide.

The Minimoog and Pitch Wheels

The idea of controlling pitch bends easily on electronic instruments became popular with synthesizers. A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that creates sounds. The first synthesizer to have a special control for pitch bending was the Minimoog. It was released in 1970. The Minimoog had a "pitch wheel" that musicians could turn to bend notes up or down. This made it much easier to add expressive slides to their music.

Images for kids

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  The Minimoog was the first synthesizer to feature a pitch wheel, visible at the left of the keyboard.