Hi, I’ve been going through the course for a while and wanted to try playing some other songs I enjoy. I’ve recently tried learning Nirvana’s rendition of Love Buzz and was having trouble getting the hammer-ons and pull-offs to sound consistently good while also keeping in rhythm. I’ve watched a few other videos but I figured I’d ask here for any additional advice.
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The best tip I ever got was to practice your pentatonic scales back and forth with them. When you’re going up the scale it’s “pluck then hammer” and when you go down the scale it would be “pull off then pluck”.
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The riff for Roadhouse Blues (Doors) is a good one to practice hammer ons
It’s just practice, no easy solution here
I’ve got a 30 minute daily workout. I practice Josh’s 10 minute workout, 5 minutes slides, 5 minutes 25 or 6 to 4 to build speed, 5 minute I Want You Back, and 5 minutes Killin Floor.
Do Josh’s 10 minute thing, add 5 minutes hammer ons, 5 minutes pull offs, and two 5 minute segments of your choice and you have a 30 minute workout, and before you know it, you’ll be a rock star
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One helpful bit:
Choose two frets - either adjacent, or two frets apart.
5th - 6th, or 5th 7th (for example).
Play hammer-ons across all strings until your arm hurts.
Make sure it is slow and rhythmically accurate!!
Same with pull-offs.
The most common mistake I see with the technique is players rushing their way through them and not having rhythmic control.
A completely non-helpful note about hammerons…
I keep thinking that it would be a perfect name for a race of aggressive aliens in a pulp comic/novel/B movie.
Here’s an example excerpt from my soon to be released scifi movie where everything is a secret reference to bass:
*Captain Burton! ships incoming!
I count 4 Hammeron battlecruisers!!
The Hammeron! Damn them to Ellefson! Prepare shields!!
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Give this a shot, worked well on guitar for me and should help on bass:
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I’m having some trouble understanding how the hammer on and pull off is used in this song. The first ones happen in the first 10 seconds in this video. I have watched it slowed down many times, but I’m still unsure what is he doing here:
I’m not sure I got it right. I seems he plucks the D, hammers on the D flat, then plucks the D. I found these tabs, and they seem to imply there is a pull off and a hammer on? And when it is written like 5p4h5, does the p mean the pull off is the note following it or the one before it? And I’m not sure he is doing a pull off in the video. I’m very confused.
G|--------------------------------------|
D|--------------------------------------|
A|-----------------------------5p4h5–|
E|–5-5–0–3-3–0–5-5–0–3-----------|
Also, it seems easier to hammer on a note on a fret higher than the one just plucked, but if one has to hammer on the Db after plucking the D, how does it work? I mean, when I try that, I can’t properly really hear the Db.
What is the best way of approaching that in this song?
Hopefully my explanation makes sense!
@andrea-slnd
I’d go with the tabs on this one.
What it sounds like in the recording is maybe a pull-off, maybe a slide from the D to the Db, but not a hammeron back to the D, it sounds like the bassist is playing that again.
I tried to see it in live videos (but they never show the bassist) and tried to see how people covered it (all different).
The person in this video here looks like their A string is tuned a 1/2 step lower than normal, because they’re making the D-Db-D sound, but looks like they’re playing on the 4th, 3rd and 4th frets?
I can understand your confusion.
It’s weird.
Without jumping into stem tracks and trying to isolate it all out, I’d play it D-Db (pull-off) and then re-articulate the last D, all on the A string.
5p4 5 in the internet tab vernacular.
I hope this helps.
It’s a hard one to hear, and there is certainly no consensus among the YT cover community on how to play this one!
Gio
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Thanks, Gio! This one was confusing to me.
They never do! It is so frustrating! A friend watched lots and lots of live videos from a song from The Cure just to see how the bassist plays it, but most of the videos of any band show the singers all the time, and one of the guitar players, sometimes the drummer for a moment here and there. And we see the bassist either from very far away, or from behind, or we see the bass guitar’s headstock, or the bassist’s face for a second. 
It is so frustrating! Bassists should organise a riot in protest! 
I don’t understand the lack of interest in the bassist.
Thank you for going for all this trouble to help! I appreciate it! 