Beginner Guitar Lesson 27 - Pull Offs

Welcome to another exciting lesson and another step forward in your abilities on the guitar. This time we are going to do the opposite of hammer ons, which are called pull offs.

Famous guitarists like Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan were well known for their supereb technique, which included hammer ons and pull offs. Did you ever wonder how Jimi got that fast trill effect out of his guitar? Well, this is how: hammering on and pulling off. And that is what you are going to be able to do with some more practice.

To articulate a pull off, you need to get used to making a new kind of movement.

To get the notes sounding clean, you need to press firmly on the string with the tip of your finger. When you take your finger off the string to play the open string, it needs to effectively pluck the string too. To achieve this skill, you need to draw the finger backwards across the string as you take it off.

Take a look at the video example camtasia link goes here.

We are going to have a pull off drill the right way, down the pentatonic scale from the top G on the third fret of the thin E string, down to the open E , the thickest string. So let's do this slowly string by string.

 First fret the top G with your third finger, pluck it down with the plectrum and pull off onto the open E. Now hammer back on to the G and pull off onto the open E again. Repeat this process at about 90bpm, playing 1 note per beat, until you get the notes sounding even. Next move on to the B string where you will fret D on the third fret with your third finger, and pull it off to the open B again, hammer back onto the D, and repeat the process as before.

Next move on to the G string to play A on the second fret with your second finger and pull that off to the open G, then hammer back onto the A.  Repeat the process. Now move down to the D string and play exactly the same pattern as in the previous step to play E to open D. Again move the same pattern down to the A string for B and open A. Finally repeat the first step on the low E string to get G to E on the lower octave.

That is it, you did it! Well done! Give yourself a hand! Now we need to work on speed and accuracy. The general rule as always applies. Start slow at about 90 bpm, and gradually build up speed to about 150 for now.

In the video the guitarist does it pretty quickly in the end. That is what you are aiming for in the long run. But do not expect to catch on perfectly in a few nights or even a month. It all comes with time. If you practice every day for 15 minutes you will achieve such skills in a matter of months.