Keep up the good work!

Andrew

Sorry I’ve been a bit behind in getting caught up with all the recent (and not so recent) comments from our readers.

I’m glad that the Guitar Noise Podcasts are being of help to you both and I hope that you find the subsequent podcasts equally useful.

As always, please feel free to leave suggestions and commentary. The feedback we get from our listeners is what will help make the future Guitar Noise Podcasts even better.

Peace

now, I finally made it home from work and got around to actually participating during the podcast (at work I just listened to some of them out of curiosity … don’t tell my boss). To be honest, I had not expected to get along with that pattern changing bass notes, up- and downstrokes, and hammer-ons. But as I was working along with the podcast I was surprised at how smoothly it actually went. Now and then I stopped the recording in order to practice the current pattern with the help of a metronome and was quite happy at how well I could do it.
However now my left wrist feels a little cramped.

Thanks for the advice and the experience. I guess I will be a busy little student come this weekend.

Best wishes from Germany

Val

There’s no hard and fast rules to what notes one “must” use to create an alternating bass line. Our ears are used to hearing the root and fifth, but there are other possibilities.

With the G and C chords, try using the third hammered on from the second. For the G chord, that means hammering on the second fret of the A string to get the B note (just as you did in the Em example). For C, try the same thing you did with Am, hammering on the second fret of the D string. You should find that these sound fine and are easy to finger.

Another possibility (one that will be explored in future podcasts) is to pull-off to get the fifth. This requires not fingering the entire chord, as you’ll need to rethink how to place your fingers. For the G chord, for example, Hit the G in the bass and then the high three strings for the chord. Then have your index finger on the second fret of the D string, hit it and pull off to get the fifth and then sound the rest of the chord. For the C chord, you want to shift your index finger up to the second fret of the G string to get the A note and then pull off.

This last bit seemed a little complicated to try to explain this early in the podcasts, so my apologies for not bringing it up then!

Hope this helps and I hope you continue to find these podcasts useful.

And there’s no timetable as far as listening to them! The whole idea is to go at whatever pace suits you best.

Peace

I really like the sound of the alternating bass notes with the hammer-ons. My question is how to apply that concept for other chords besides the Em and Am. In bith of the examples in the podcast, you were alternating tonic notes on the first beat of each successive emasure while applying the hammer on to a fifth note on the third beat. But when I look at how to do this for other basic chord shapes, such as C and G, the tonics and fifths aren’t always so conveniently placed for appling this effect.

Any suggestions?

Getting the hang of hammer-ons with the A chord can be tricky because the A chord is one that people find it hard to get comfortable with for a while. Some things you might try are:

1) Work with an A7 chord, leaving the G string open, just to get used to the motion of hammering. Then add the index finger again and see how it goes.

2) Try using a “classical style” A chord. To do this, you want to use either your index or middle finger to fret the note on both the G and D strings. Then use either your middle, ring or even pinky to do the hammer.

3) Try a “full chord” or “double” hammer – start with no fingers on the strings and then, instead of hammering on only the B string, hammer on all three strings at once. You can also keep only your index finger on the strings and hammer with both the middle and ring finger at the same time. This will not, obviously, give you exactly the same effect, but with repetition, you should be able to get more control over individual hammering and eventually get where you’re going!

I hope this helps. For more advice, you might want to try posting a note on the Guitar Noise Forum page. You should get even more helpful hints for the GN Forum members.

Peace

Sammy, we try to keep something of a schedule at Guitar Noise but it’s not the easiest thing, owing to the fact that we’re all volunteers and we try to do what we can in our spare time. And, judging by the posts on the Guitar Noise Forum page, I truly doubt that you’re our only metalhead reader! ; – )

Kin, there are a lot of what we call “slap your forehead” moments in learning guitar – times when we figure out something that we realize should have been obvious to us from the start. We all have had them and continue to have them regardless of how long we’ve been playing.

Trouble is that there are a lot of things concerning guitar playing (and music in general) that don’t get explained unless someone asks because we forget all the things concerning playing that we learned along the way. They just seem so part of what we do that we don’t think twice about them. The little tip about upstrums is one I teach regularly, but not until writing an article for Play Guitar! Magazine did I think about mentioning it in my writing. And it certainly made a lot of sense to bring it up here in the Guitar Noise Podcasts.

Hopefully we’ll have a lot more little tips that will make playing easier and more fun. One thing that certainly helps make the podcasts better is the feedback that we’re getting. Keep it up!

Looking forward to chatting with you all again soon.

Peace

Sammy
~Your (probably) only metalhead reader

Remember if you’ve got any suggestions on how we can make these even better, please write and let us know. We think we’ve got a handle on making the sound quality a little better and we’re hoping that we’ll have it in place for our next podcast, which will go online on Monday, February 25.

Peace

Yes, “hammer-on” is a word, but I’m not sure it’s approved by Mr. Webster or any of the other major dictionary publishers as yet…

And they are fun and amazing, no? Sometimes you can make huge changes in your sound and take big steps with your playing by doing very little. One thing I try to stress with my students is that your fretting hand ultimately wants to be as active as your strumming hand, even if you’re only strumming chords. And I hope that this series of Guitar Noise Podcasts on strumming will help beginners to achieve this goal.

However you managed to find Guitar Noise, we’re glad you did. Welcome aboard and I hope you have a great time making music with your guitar.

Peace