Whammy bar
The arm attached to a tremolo bridge that the player pushes or pulls to slacken or tighten the strings and so bend their pitch.
Depending on the setup, the arm can drop the pitch by a hard dive or raise it by pulling up, and whether it can raise pitch at all depends on whether the bridge floats above the body or sits flat. Return to pitch afterwards is the constant concern, and it depends on the nut, the saddles, the string ends and the spring balance all allowing the bridge to come back to exactly the same point. A bar that will not stay where it is put is usually a loose arm socket.
Example: a gentle dip on the bar at the end of a phrase adds a slide down in pitch that no bend of the hand can produce.
See also
Related
- PageTremolo
- PageAction
- PageArchtop
- PageB-Bender
- PageAaron Dessner
- PageAce Frehley
- PageAd-Rock
- ReferenceCircle of fifths