Whats The Point of Bends????

Listen to some good blues; you'll figure it out.

Check out how much BB King can say with three notes. Subtle first finger bends with heavy vibrato on the last note are his speciality. SRV wouldn't settle on a measly half step and even a full bend wasn't enough for him. He'd bend two hole steps, and I've been told he used heave guage strings to boot!

For the record, you can bend on wind instruments.  Unlike the guitar, it's an advanced technique.

The more you know!

Yeah I know, but it's just not the same ...I play trombone...

It adds more expression and emotion to your playing...ever notice how some players have an instantly recognizable sound? Others might play the same song but just doesn't sound the same. Some players like SRV would bend to the extreme (tuned lower to allow extreme bends) and some are just ever so subtle...    Try playing a simple tune...like Amazing Grace...note by note and try some notes with bends and vibrato...make this a practice exercise and soon your question will be answered...jg

OK, dude, I'll give you what some call the Nashville secret with respect to
bending notes, but it will only help you if you are willing to do the theoretical
work and learn or already know how chords are structured. You don't start
by just bending anything, but you have a plan, and take it from there.
OK, the best place to start is to use the 12th fret as home base. You know
that's where the notes start to repeat. Open G is the same tone as 12th fret G.
if you follow. Now, the 12th is about the middle, so the strings flex there.
Let's talk about the key of G, where the chord is G B D.  Here is a simple
move: play the G on the 12th with your 1st finger and barre the B with the
same finger. Now you have the one and the three covered, and they
harmonize in the key of G.   How are you going to get the D? Go to the
B string, 14th fret, which is a C#, with your third finger, release the barre,
and bend that C# one half step up to a D.  Now you have a form of the
G chord to mess around with, using just two strings. You can also get a
G  by bending the high E string a full step from the 13th fret, which
happens to be an F, and the (open?) D is found on the 12th fret,
D string.  See where I am going? Once you get grounded in this
idea, you will see the relationships all over the place, in whatever
key you are after.  All I am doing here is stressing theory. When
they let you loose, you can bend whatever you feel like bending,
but you'll have the fundamental knowledge to produce harmonics
in case they run out of beer and start listening to you, God forbid.