Hammer-On and Pull-Off Techniques For Intermediates

Before starting this lesson, you should be proficient with actually using hammer-ons and pull-offs. This lesson is going to focus on some more intermediate level uses of these techniques, which do require a guitarist to have the basic use of these techniques down. While a lot of lines do just use one or the other to move in and out of a particular note, combining these techniques with each other and other techniques can create some very elaborate sounding lines, some of which are a lot easier to play then they sound.

Combining Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs
The first step to using most of these more advanced uses is becoming proficient with using hammer-ons and pull-offs in conjunction with one another. There is a limit to how many hammer-ons or pull-offs you can play in a single sequence, but once you start adding them together, you can play indefinitely without plucking the string again (albeit, with a limited number of notes.

The following example is going across the A minor pentatonic scale, but playing a hammer-on and pull-off on each string. This is a good, simple way to start getting a feel for using these techniques together. It is very important to realize that hammer-on and pull-off notes still need to fall in proper timing, so be sure to practice this with a metronome. Keep in mind the fretting hand, not the plucking hand is responsible for most of the timing in this example.

Trills
A trill is almost always played by rapidly hammering-on and pulling-off two notes (and occasionally three) in a row. These are almost always found in solos, and more advanced players can seamlessly shift from one trill to another. The note length varies based on the tempo, but usually these are played as sixteenth notes at most of the more common tempos. Remember this is in rhythm, and you shouldn’t be inadvertently adding or removing notes from a trill. Practice slow at first, and then raise the tempo as you become more comfortable with it.

The example below is a fairly typical trill that you would find in a lot of solos. This particular one has the trill lasting for a half note and moves into a held half note vibrato. The transfer from the trill to the half note should be clean, and should start right on the third beat. There are nine notes in this bar, so be sure to practice slowly and make sure you are playing nine notes. Just because trills are fast doesn’t mean they should be sloppy. Many listeners won’t notice, but some people will, and it makes your playing sound the worse for it.

Combining With Slides
You can also combine hammer-ons and pull-offs with slides and play some fairly long sequences with only one note actually plucked. By adding slides, you can move to other notes vertically on the string, so you are no longer limited to how far you can reach.

The following example is playing down the G minor scale solely by using hammer-ons, pull-off, and slides on the G string. The entire sequence only has one note pick, which is the first note, everything else is one of the mentioned techniques. Longer sequences like this are a helpful way to evaluate just how good your technique is. The entire sequence should sound just as solid as if you actually did pick all the notes shown, if not, then you likely need to re-examine the technique. This particular sequence never uses the pinky and all slides are down with the index finger, if this is not the case, you need to practice slowly and see where you are messing up.

Keep on rockin'!