Acoustic Guitar: Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs with Chords and Final Post

Hammer-ons and pull-offs are one way to make playing chords sound different and abstract. A hammer-on is "when you push (or "hammer") a left-hand finer onto a string with enough force to sound to note without using your picking hand." A pull-off  is "when you release a left-hand finger onto a string with a slight downward motion-actually plucking the string with the tip of your left-hand finger; again, sounding the note without using your picking hand. At first, I was a little confused as to how I would do that, but then I listened to the CD that the book provided and it gave me a sense of what both a hammer-on and a pull-off should sound like. It also felt a little awkward to try and "hammer" and "pull" on the chords. It still is and it's still a little confusing. This is one of the more difficult things I needed to learn while playing guitar. Trying to add on extra sounds and accents while playing might take me longer to get the hang of, especially since I'm still working on perfecting playing the basic chords. I practiced this for a couple of days and it is still a little difficult. Ok, very difficult. The sound of the guitar when I play sounds completely off and not how the CD sounds. To be honest, it can get a little frustrating when what I play on my guitar doesn't sound like its supposed to sound. Although, I do have to remind myself that it takes time and the that the longer and more frequent I practice, the more I will gradually get better.

Diagram of a hammer-on

Diagram of a pull-off

Over all, this has been a pretty cool project. This gave me the opportunity to improve my guitar skills, which something I've been wanting to do for a while. As I said in my previous posts, I did not become a pro by the end of this project, but I did indeed learn a couple new things and improved my skills. Sometimes it was hard for me to play, because it felt like I wasn't really getting anywhere, but u reminded myself that results don't show up over night. I will definitely continue to practice guitar after this project and I will hopefully become at least a fairly good guitar player in the future.