Here’s how it works …

Chords produced from the parent C major scale:

C – Dm – Em- F – G – Am- B dim – C

The “A” natural minor harmonies:

Am- B dim – C– Dm – Em- F – G – Am

Notice how the natural minor has the same harmonic structures are the major scale only in a different sequence.

The perfect cadence challenge …

In ‘C” major the strong sense of closure is produced by the “G” moving to the “C” (5 – 1 progression); whereas in natural minor version the Em to Am (5- 1 in the natural minor) produced a weak sounding cadence.

The solution:

Musicians solved the problem by sharpening the leading note (7th note) of the natural minor scale; by sharpening this one note they could change the 5th chord from a minor to a major thereby creating the intended perfect cadence.

Here’s what happened …

Harmonic structures produced from the natural minor

Am- B dim – C– Dm – Em- F – G – Am

The new harmonic minor (so named because of the ‘new’ harmonies it created)

A- B- C – D – E – F – G# – A (notice the sharpened 7th note)

Produced these chords …

Am – B dim – C aug – Dm – E – F – G# dim – Am

As you can see the 5th chord in the harmonic minor progression is now a major chord and a whole new world of harmonic and melodic possibilities has been created for the creative musician to explore.

Pull-off’s, like hammer-on’s (since they are essentially the same thing in reverse), expand possibilities of speed, phrasing and articulation, sound and touch; pull-off’s are equally as popular on both electric and acoustic guitar and are an essential part of the lead guitarist’s toolkit.

The Pull-off Technique:

The pull-off technique involves pressing down the primary note of the melodic line with the 1st, 2nd or 3rd finger while pressing down a preparatory note (higher in pitch on the same string) with either the 2nd, 3rd or 4th finger depending on the particular musical phrase.

Next, pluck the preparatory note, and while the string is vibrating, pull the finger playing the higher pitch away from the string (toward the side of the guitar fingerboard) in a plucking action. In other words, pick the string a second time with the fingering hand.

The pull-off should be strong enough to produce a solid tone approximating the loudness of the original picked note. Great care should be taken to maintain rhythmic control of the pull-off; don’t rush or drag the tempo.

This article will focus on one of the most common guitar moves: the hammer-on.

Hammer-On’s

The concept is to have your left hand fingers play extra notes that do not require any additional right hand picking (assuming you are a right handed player). This produces a smooth melodic sound, very much like a vocalist or wind instrument such as a saxophone.

The technique is very simple: When you pick a note the string vibrates the entire remaining length of the string (if you look closely at the tick strings you will see these strings vibrating) the idea is to select another note on the sane string and hammer-down (hammer-on) to the desired note, with a strong hammer-like action. This produces another tone, higher in pitch, without requiring any right-hand move. Thus you are able to get two or more notes for the price of one picking stroke.

Another way to think of this ‘hammer-on’ action is to visualise the action of the little hammers striking the strings inside a piano.

Over the years I had gained quite a reputation as a versatile
guitarist who could play many styles of music authentically;
little did I know that this little boy was about to give my
reputation a bit of a serious battering.

While our band was playing the young lad walked onstage and asked
me if I could play “Happy Birthday”; I was busy playing and said
O.K. hoping that he would soon forget about it and the evening
could proceed without any more requests from the little guy; this
was not going to be the case!

During the next bracket out of the corner of my eye I could see
the young boy heading for the bandstand and sure enough he asked
me again when we were going to play “Happy Birthday”; I replied
’soon’ thinking he’ll soon tire of asking.

As the night progressed this little fellow made several trips to
the bandstand each time I tried to avoid the inevitable;
eventually he brought reinforcements with him (his little sister)
“can you play “Happy Birthday” for my little sister?” he asked
politely. At that moment one of the band members recognized the
little girl as the daughter of the people who had booked us.

Now I knew we were in trouble … no “Happy Birthday” no pay!

You may be wondering why I had gone to so much trouble trying to
avoid playing this simple song; the reason was I didn’t know how
to play it!

Yes, here was this guitarist who could play chicken’ pickin’
licks for country; rock solos and dance music but couldn’t play a
simple melody.

I eventually ended up being cornered by the whole family; with
mum, dad, and three children all listening intently I totally
mangled “Happy Birthday”, boy, was it embarrassing, not even the
composer would have recognized his own song based on my
rendition!

As I walked off stage to the sound of my own feet and packed up,
red faced with my reputation in tatters, wishing I could crawl
inside my guitar case I was determined to never let this happen
again. It sometimes takes an incident like this to REALLY learn
what you should be learning.

It’s simple isn’t it? People want to hear tunes not scales or
arpeggios; sure guitar players will be impressed with your
ability to ’sweep pick’ but when it’s someone’s birthday they
couldn’t care less it you can play all of Van Halen’s Eruption
solo they just want to hear Happy Birthday.

So you don’t come face-to-face with the same type of embarrassing
situation here’s Happy Birthday.

I’ve broken the tune into small easy to remember sections, learn
each section and then link all the parts together and very soon
you will be playing the entire song.

Happy Birthday

part 1
—————-
—————-
—————-
—————-
-3–3–5–3–
—————-

part 2
————-
————-
————-
–3–2—–
————-
————-

part 3
—————-
—————-
—————-
—————-
-3–3–5–3–
—————-

part 4
————-
————-
————-
–5–3—–
————-
————-

part 5
————-
————-
————-
————-
–3–3—–
————-

part 6
—————
—————
–5—-2——
————3–
—————
—————

part 7
————
————
————
–2———
——-5—-
————

part 8
————-
————-
–3—-3—-
————-
————-
————-

part 9
————-
————-
–2———-
——-3—–
————-
————-

part 10
————–
————–
————–
—5—-3—
————–
————–

Happy Birthday may not be your favorite song, but it is top of
the charts once a year for everyone, it’s also important to play
songs in the key (pitch) that people are familiar with otherwise
they will have trouble singing along with the song; I’ve
presented Happy Birthday in the key of ‘F’ which is the most
popular key for that song.

The first year of my guitar playing adventures consisted of
learning to play melodies (tunes) on the guitar, I’m very
thankful for this type of introduction to music as I have never
been asked to play a scale at any gig over the past thirty five
years of professional playing but I have played many requests for
tunes!

I’m mentioning this because there’s an over emphasis of the
importance of scales in guitar instruction; the type of thinking
that’s widely presented is that if you lock yourself in a room
practicing scales 24/7/365 for ten years you will be a ‘guitar-
god’.

Reality check: If you locked yourself in a room for ten years
playing guitar you would:

(a) be very hungry (and tired)

(b) quite crazy

(c) and still not be able to play any songs …

On the positive side you would be able to play lots of scales
(really fast).

A good working knowledge of scales and their musical application
is an important part of a well balanced musician’s education the
trick is not to become totally obsessed with them, scales are
merely your musical alphabet, nothing more, nothing less!

The purpose of this article is to drastically reduce the amount
of time you spend learning scales on the guitar.

Here’s the fastest way to learn scales on the guitar:

Tip 1: Decide which scale you need to learn, this will be
determined by the music YOU want to play; it’s pointless learning
some rare Egyptian scale if you only want to play the blues.
Don’t learn a scale just because it’s in a book or your
teacher/friend suggested it would be good for you to learn.

Remember: Five minutes though is better than five hours of
haphazard practice on guitar.

Tip 2: Learn the key signatures, know how many sharps or flats
are in each key e.g., key of G = 1 sharp (F sharp); key of F = 1
flat (B flat); key of D = 2 sharps (F sharp and C sharp) etc

Tip 3: Learn the name of the notes on the guitar fretboard; this
is the most important thing to do if you want to learn your
scales quickly; initially it will seems like it’s the slowest way
but believe me learning scale patterns and not having a single
clue what you are doing is a one way ticket to nowhere!

I know it’s common for guitar players to learn a pentatonic scale
pattern without:

(a) knowing the names of any of the notes they are playing in the
scale pattern under their fingers

(b) or without even knowing which type of pentatonic scale (major
or minor) they are playing.

Can you see how hopeless this scale pattern learning really is ?

Take your time learn the notes on your guitar, know the key
signatures and decide which scale(s) are relevant to your music
and you will literally save years of wasted practice and musical
frustration.

Even though guitarists become involved with all sorts of guitar
‘activities’ they rarely have any accurate way of measuring their
progress; their technical ability generally fluctuates between
basic (or practically non-existent) to average depending on their
current music projects i.e., if most of their work involves
playing a few power chords in a group that’s the type of
technique they will currently have until some other role is
thrust upon them.

The way to overcome this issue and develop a reliable technique
regardless of your performance responsibilities is to practice
with a metronome and keep an accurate daily metronome log to
track your progress.

Here’s three ways you can use a metronome to build a solid,
reliable technique on guitar.

Concept 1: Speed is a by product of accuracy – always keep the
following points in mind as you practice.

Remember: practice itself does not make perfect, rather PERFECT
practice makes perfect!

(a) Start slowly and gradually build up speed

(b) Stress rhythmic evenness and flawless execution, make certain
you play the string (left and right hand) at the same time. No
flams!

(c) Make a BIG deal out of each note.

(d) The first mistake is a warning sign, stop and visualize the
note/scale played perfectly then play the exercise the way you
wish you had.

(e) Remember you are in charge of quality control; mistakes breed
instantly and will turn up whenever you are performing under
pressure.

Concept 2: Maintain a metronome log – draw up a simple metronome
log which is essentially a six-day-a-week dairy where you track
your guitar technique.

The idea is to practice daily for six consecutive days a week
then have one day off from your technical practice to let your
muscles recover, you can still play guitar on the seventh day,
just don’t do any technical stuff.

Your target is to increase your speed by 12 metronome beats per
week, you may not be able to do this for a start, that’s fine but
your mind needs a target, and that’s our target; use your
metronome to track your progress.

Important: Don’t set your metronome and try and keep up with it
that will only result in inaccurate playing and mistakes rather
use the metronome to track your daily results.

Concept 3: Reliable technique as a permanent reflex capability.

Once you can maintain your present maximum technique for a twenty
one day period that technique will be affixed in your nervous
system a a permanent reflex capability, which means you can go
for long periods without playing, but with about two to three
weeks practice you will regain your full technique.

Performance under pressure is the name of the game, if you
practice slowly and accurately you will play accurately under
pressure, if you practice mistakes you will play mistakes it’s as
simple as that.

A strong, reliable technique will give you a new sense of
confidence in your playing so take great care building your
technique you’ll be glad you did.

From the audience perspective all you can ever see is six silver
strings however, when you are viewing the fretboard through the
eyes of a professional guitarist it the neck takes on a whole new
accelerated learning experience.

Although there seems to be lots of notes on your guitar the good
news is that many of the notes are duplicated on multiple strings
and fret positions.

A great way to become aware of this is to create your very own
pitch graph like this:

How To Create Your Pitch Graph

(a) grab some colored pens (fluro pens are my favorite)

(b) rule up six lines across the page to represent the six
strings of the guitar

(c) mark in twelve frets and we’re ready to go!

(d) color the first string yellow

(e) color the second string yellow at the fifth fret onwards to
the twelfth fret

(f) color the third string yellow at the ninth fret onwards to
the twelfth

(g) next, mark the second string using a green pen from the open
second string to the fourth fret

(h) mark the third string green at the fourth fret to fret eight

(i) color the fourth string green at fret nine to the twelfth
fret

(j) mark the third string with an orange pen from the open string
to the fourth

(k) moving over to string four mark the fifth to the twelfth with
the orange pen

(l) color string five at the tenth to twelfth with orange

(m) now it’s over to string four open to the fourth fret with a
blue pen

(n) color string five at the fifth to twelfth with blue

(o) string six from tenth to twelfth as blue

nearly finished ….

(p) mark the fifth string open to fifth with red

(q) string six, fifth to ninth is also in red

Now you have a very colorful guitar fretboard that will give
you a visual layout of how the fingerboard is viewed by a
seasoned player.

Pitch graph concept: same color = same pitch

The idea is to show you that strings marked with the same color
equals notes of the same pitch e.g., the pitch of the first
string is duplicated on the second string at the fifth to twelfth
frets; it is also duplicated on the third string at the ninth to
twelfth frets.

You can use any colors have fun and be creative and most of all
enjoy exploring the fretboard looking and listening for
duplicated notes.

O.K. we all know how important it is but how many of us know how
to do it? I heard the guy’s that know how to do this had their
last meeting in a telephone box (just kidding); but let’s just
say there isn’t too many who have this aspect of their guitar
playing under control.

If you have already tried to learn the notes on the fretboard you
will know how frustrating it is, just when you think you have
learned the notes on the first string and you begin to study the
notes on the second string all of a sudden your mind goes blank
and without warning the first string notes disappear out of your
head and soon it will seem as if you’ve forgotten all the notes
on both strings.

The trick is to learn the strings in a specific order and relate
what you have already learned to the new material that you are
studying. This type of connected learning will make it easy to
recall the information at high speed.

Step 1: learn the notes on the first string

First string notes (thin string)

Note name is on the left; numbers indicate fret position.

E = open

F = 1

F#/Gb = 2

G = 3

G#/Ab = 4

A = 5

A#/Bb = 6

B = 7

C = 8

C#/Db = 9

D = 10

D#/Eb = 11

E = 12

Step two: learn the notes on string four

That’s right I said string four, the reason why guitar players
have so much trouble recalling the positioning of notes on the
fretboard is that when you try to learn the strings in a
consecutive order there isn’t any easy way to link the
information together consequently almost everyone has trouble
remembering and recalling the names and location on the notes.

Important: you can instantly learn and remember the notes on the
fourth string if you apply one simple rule…

=> skip one fret <=

Here’s how that works.

Let’s say you have learned that the first string, first fret is
the note “F”; now go over to the fourth string and remembering to
skip one fret, you should now be on the fourth string, third fret
which is also the note “F” (one octave lower than the first
string F).

See how easy that is? All the notes on string four are in exactly
the same note sequence as the notes on string one only offset by
one fret!

I’ll give you another example to work on: first string, third
fret is the note “G” moving over to the fourth string and
skipping one fret we land on the fourth string; fifth fret which
is also the note “G” one octave lower in sound than the “G” on
the first string.

If you learn the notes an the first string and apply our “skip
one fret” rule you will be able to link the first and fourth
strings together in your mind and have a visual shape to help to
recall the names of the notes.

Traditionally, intervals are usually presented as two separate
notes as they occur in melodies of songs; however an often
overlooked musical fact is that intervals can also be played as a
mini- chord (two notes); in fact from a guitarist’s perspective
that’s probably a good place to start.

The first thing to understand about ear training is that it’s an
ongoing study you never finish learning and listening to musical
sounds played both individually and as a coagulation of tones.

Previously I have covered the intervals of major third, minor
third and perfect fifth today in this ear training session we
will focus on the perfect fourth (ascending) interval. There is
also an interval named the perfect interval (descending) but
that’s for another session, only the perfect fourth (ascending)
interval will be presented in this article

Since this ear training session is primarily addressed to
guitarists I’ll begin our discussion with the harmonic fourth
sound (mini-chord) which has to be one of the most often played
harmonic intervals by guitarists.

Have you ever heard a song called ‘Smoke On The Water’? Unless
you have just arrived from the moon you must have heard or played
this song before; unfortunately as well as being one of the most
played songs it also has the dubious distinction of being one of
the most inaccurately played songs of all time.

When ‘Smoke On The Water’ is played correctly the first chord is
a harmonic fourth.

Harmonic fourth (power chord)

To hear a great example of the harmonic fourth listen to the
opening chord of ‘Smoke On The Water’ by Deep Purple.

Harmonic fourth – ‘Smoke On The Water’
——-
——-
–0—
–0—
——-
——-

This is the correct way to play ‘Smoke On The Water’, listen
carefully to the original recorded version of this song then play
the harmonic fourth as shown above and you will notice how it
matches exactly with the sound on the recording.

Now that you know what the interval of a perfect fourth sounds
like when played as a chord let’s work on being able to hear the
interval when played as single notes as it would be in a melody
of a song.

Begin with a reference pitch of middle ‘C’.

Middle ‘C’ reference pitch (third string; fifth fret)

——-
——-
–5—
——-
——-
——-

Next play the note ‘F’ on the second string; fret six

——-
–6—
——-
——-
——-
——-

Repeat that process, take plenty of time remember we want to
recognize this interval when it turns up in songs and solos
therefore the slower you play his exercise the better.

Playing by ear is really learning to play from memory we need to
make a conscious effort to listen to each note and how it relates
to the previous note. People who can play by ear have developed
an accurate ‘recall’ system by mentally filing sounds in their
memory so that they can rapidly identify that sound and it’s
location on the guitar fretboard.

Next play the two notes as a chord (harmonic fourth or power
chord)

Harmonic fourth

——-
–6—
–5—
——-
——-
——-

The harmonic fourth you have just played is in the key of ‘C’
whereas the harmonic fourth I presented for ‘Smoke On The Water’
is in the key of ‘G’ (the original recorded version); they are
exactly the same musical sound only presented in different keys
and played in a different octave.

Now to round off this introduction to perfect fourth intervals
here’s a short list of some tunes that begin with the perfect
fourth (ascending) interval

1. Here Comes The Bride (Wedding March)

2. Amazing Grace

3. Auld Lang Syne

4. All The Things You Are

5. Love Me Tender (Elvis Presley)

Try some ‘on the job training’ … next time you play a song ask
yourself what interval am I’m hearing; it’s fun to play this
game and the great news is that it doesn’t matter what type of
music you play the intervals are still the same so now it’s back
to playing your guitar.