Blog - Legato / Hammer On Exercise Part 1

Focusing on a smooth legato technique is always important to those who want to improve and add new dimensions to their guitar playing.

Lets look at a quick and simple way of improving your legato / Hammer On technique.

The tab below show how you can incorporate practicing techniques such as 'Hammer On's with your Pentatonics (as well as other scales) to maximise your practice time. This exercise simply involves ascending and descending the scale shapes with the hammer on technique.

You may often find that guitarist will ascend scale shapes with hammer on's and descend with pull offs so I encourage you to focus on the opposite to help you improve all aspects of the hammer on technique.

Focus on practicing all 5 Pentatonic shapes with a metronome thus allowing you to focus on your timing as well as building a smooth legato technique. Once you feel comfortable begin to increase the tempo of the metronome and let the real fun begin!

Here's an example of G Minor Pentatonic Shape 1 ascending and descending in hammer ons, enjoy!