Hey there, welcome to part 2 of the Pull- Offs Guitar Lessons where you will find out about the pull- off technique in greater detail and learn more ways to incorporate this technique into your playing. In Part 1 we looked into what the technique includes and the basic mechanics of the technique plus some licks to work on to get you having fun.
Up to this point your Pull- Off technique has possibly only relied on using one picked note pulled off onto one other note. I want to teach you how to create a roll of notes by using the pull- off technique with three notes instead of two. This is often referred to as Legato, meaning to play smoothly and that is exactly what we are going for by learning this roll technique.
Exercise 1- Three Note Pull Off Rolls
Three Note Pull Off Roll
The exercise above is designed to build your Pull Off skills by showing you the quality a good roll technique can bring to your playing. Start by having the first, third and fourth finger place on the high E string on the correct frets as shown above. Now pick the high E string and pull the fourth finger away to sound the note at the 7th fret and then pull the third finger away to sound the 5th fret note. Repeat this process working in triplets to a metronome set to 60 bpm to start with and building up in 5 bpm slots. In the exercise shown above you will need to start by picking each 8th fret note but after this becomes easy you should try to pick once and execute the whole bar with one single pick at the start. Players such as Joe Satriani and Steve Vai will roam around a scale using this approach for bars!
Exercise 2- A Dorian Three Note Pull Off Roll
Dorian Three Note Pull Off Roll
Exercise 2 uses notes from the A Dorian mode to help build your ability to move across strings with the legato technique. This should note prove much more difficult than the previous exercise because the finger pattern is the same. If you want to develop scale knowledge and use the legato technique we are learning about by using a variety of different scales and modes then please see Be The Guitarist for the most direct way to learn scales and modes on guitar.
Exercise 3- A Aeolian Three Note Pull Off Roll
Aeolian Pull Off Scale
This exercise is slightly more difficult because you use a different finger pattern on the two strings to suggest an A Aeolian scale. On the high E string you should use fingers 4, 3 and 1 and on the B string you should use fingers 4, 2 and 1.
I hope you have enjoyed this lesson and that you have learnt something new! Remember to check out Be The Guitarist if you want to push your knowledge.
Keep practising and have fun!
Tom Clark