Hammer-ons and pull-offs The next important aspect of playing
the guitar is pressing individual fingers down. We do this when
we play scales and licks, and a great way to strengthen your
left hand is to work on hammer-ons. A hammer-on is the action
where you pick the first note, but not the second. Instead, your
left-hand finger presses down into the fret with enough force to
make the note sound. It requires some skill and strength, but
you end up with a different sound because instead of a pick
plucking the string near the bridge, you’re going to generate
the sound from the fret itself. To illustrate this, Fig. 8 takes
the basic pentatonic scale and uses a hammer-on for the second
note on each string. Not only does this sound different, but it
can enable you to play faster than you normally would because
you don’t have to worry about your pick following along, since
it only has to strike the string every other note. Now, I’d
really love you to use the fourth finger in Fig. 8. It’s so easy
to play pentatonic