The next thing we are going to be looking at technique is hammer ons and pull offs. This is quite common in metal riffs. When you got like a riff going on then you might want to add some hammer ons and pull offs. A lot times, it tends to be used with open strings. You can also use it when you are not using open strings as well but it kind of adds a few more notes and it sounds more impressive.
Things that you can use as an example of this would just be to practice first of all with an open string and just hammering on and pulling off. What we are going to do here is look at the example where we are going to play the 3rd fret on the low E. Hammer ons on the 5th fret on the low E, pull off to the 3rd fret and then pull off to the open E. We just continue doing that with the left hand without picking for the time being. Okay, there is nothing too bad there. And, when you start to speed up, the coordination really needs to kind of kicking so you can keep it nice and even. Let us just speed up a little quicker. And when you feel confident with that just see how fast you can get it.
The thing with this as well is that kind of idea. And, to move it along the different positions on the low E string. So in one of the performances, we are going to be doing this which is actually in D. But, for the purposes of teaching you, we are just going to do this and we are going to hammer on from 10 to 12, pull of to 10 and then to the open string. So we are going to have 10 and on 12, pull off to 10, pull off to the open low E and we are going to move that same shape down again. We are going to hammer on the 8th fret on the low E, hammer on 10, pull off to 8 and then pull off to the open string again. Also, if you do not want to do complete hammer ons and pull offs, you can always pick the first note just to give it a bit more altitude. Picking the first note probably would be my first choice just to keep it nice and even.
The next shape we are going to looking at is fret 7 on the low E, hammer on to 8 on the low E, pull off to seven and then pull off to the low E. So now, we are going to continue down to the low E and we are going to play five on the low E, hammer on to 7, pull off to 5 and then pull off to the open E. Then we are going to do the same thing again. So we are going to play from 3 on the low E to 5, pull off to 3 and then pull off to the open E and we are going to do that twice. And see how fast you can get that. Just remember, with speed, you still need to keep it really accurate and really clean.
When using this technique, you really kind of want to make sure that none of the other strings are kind of ringing. So you just put your right hand over the strings just to kind of loosen it. So continue doing that and with that, that is going to be a good practice routine. Just to start up slow and just to get used doing that whole action and obviously, when you get more comfortable with that then just speed up.
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