HOW TO PLAY HAMMER ONS AND OFFS ON GUITAR

How to Play Hammer Ons and Pull Offs on Guitar

Hammer ons and pull offs are crucial guitar techniques when learning how to play lead guitar. This guitar technique has a more legato sound to it as there is no pick attack for the notes that are hammer on or pulled off. You see it used in all music styles, but it is most popular in rock, blues and country. Quite often you will see rock and blues guitarists playing “one handed” hammer ons and pull offs to add flashy guitar tricks to their stage show.

HOW TO PLAY POWER CHORDS

How to Play Power Chords – Moveable Power Chords

Power chords are used primarily in rock music and are made up of the first (called the root) and fifth steps of a major scale. As you learn how to play power chords in songs you will often see them notated such as A5, B5, etc. This is to indicate that the chords are not major chords, as these would also contain the third step of the scale and sound very different.

The great thing about moveable power chords (also called closed position power chords) is that once you have learned one power chord you can use that same chord shape to play power chords in any key. For example, simply move the G up two frets and you have an A power chord.

To play a power chord simply use your first finger to play the root of the chord, and your third finger to play the fifth. For example, to play a G power chord you would place your first finger on the low E string at the third (3rd) fret and your third finger on the A string at the fifth (5th) fret.

HOW TO READ GUITAR CHORDS

How To Read Guitar Chords

Learning how to read guitar chords is one of the first things you need to know when learning how to play guitar. This free guitar lesson will show you how to read guitar chords and explains the finger numbering system that specifies the guitar finger numbers for playing notes in chords and scales. You will also learn about fret and string numbering.

Guitar Finger Numbers

Guitar notation and chord diagrams rely on a system which assigns guitar finger numbers to each finger of a guitarist’s left hand. Whenever you see these finger numbers (usually within a circle) as part of a scale or chord diagram it means that you should use that specific finger to play that note on the guitar fretboard. Of course for left-handed guitarists this guitar numbering system applies to their right-hand fingers.

Guitar String Numbers

Guitar strings are numbered from 1 to 6, going from the thinnest string (the high E) to the thickest. When you see an O above the string it indicates that the string is to be played open. An X above the string means that it should not be played (i.e. do not pluck it or mute the string so that it so that it can not be heard).

Guitar Fret Numbers

As you can see in the diagram above, frets are numbered by starting on the first fret after the nut.

How to Read Guitar Chords

Now that we know guitar fingering, fret and string numbers we can use this information to decipher the guitar chord diagrams below.

How to Play an A Chord

In the open A example, we can see that we see that:

Our first finger holds down the fourth string (D) at the second fret
The second finger holds down the third string (G) at the second fret
The third finger holds down the second string (B) at the second fret
We do not play the low E string (X)
We play the high E and low A strings open (O)

Playing a D Major 7th (D Maj7 or DM7) Chord

In the D Maj 7 example, we can see how:

Our first finger holds down the first (high E), second (B) and third string (G) at the second fret
We do not play the low E string (X)
We play the A and D strings open (O)NOTE: This type of chord is sometimes referred to as a partial barre chord as one finger covers multiple strings