Help with Hammer On/Tapping volume

Matthew_Taylor

Hey, I have been having a problem with my hammer ons being much quieter than my picked note, is it to do with technique? Where is the best place in the fret to hammer on? Has guitar setup got anything to do with it? action etc. Any help would be much appreciated.

Roland

It's partly about hammering firmly, and not letting your finger tip relax after contact because this dulls the note. Set up does make a difference. Either too high or too low an action will interfere. Too high, and it's hard to do it quickly enough not to loose string vibrations - your finger is damping the string between the time it contacts the string and when it hits the fret. Too low, and your finger doesn't have time to put some energy into the string, compensating for the damping, before it hits the fret.

Try hammering in the middle, rather than just behind the fret, and then putting a little vibrato into the hammered note

John_P

To build strength and hammering technique I sit and work through my fingers hammering and pulling each one in turn.  Do it till it starts to ache,  pause till you're relaxed and then do some more..

First finger anywhere on the fret board, say second string 5th fret then hammer on the 6th with the 2nd finger and pull off, then hammer the 7th fret with the 3rd finger and pull off, then hammer on the 8th fret with the 4th finger and pull off.    Any variation or just focussing on a weaker finger will help though.

Barney

try doing it very slow just on one string at a time really observing the volume ...and really slow..you can easily build up speed later....
these are good exercises

---5------7--------9-----7----5---using fingers 1 2 and 4


then do similar exercises with different fingers like say ..1 3 and 4...using 5 7 and 8 frets...

when you do these slowly on each string its easy to play the full scale ...or whatever ....

MatthewShreddery

It's all about finger speed.

A fast finger will act like a piano hammer and excite the string on contact.

It's not really about brute strength.

Practice hammering notes 'from nowhere', instead of as part of a trill. i.e not using pull offs to assist in the production of the note.

Low action helps, but a high action could help as a strengthening device if you wanted to set your guitar up that way for a while and then re-set it to a lower action.

Fingers near to the fret is best. The further from the fret you are, the more risk there is of buzz.

Matthew_Taylor

Thanks for the help. @Barney the little excercise is great, I have been practising it with a metranome starting slow to get the volume then speeding up trying to keep the volume, really helped. I am still practising the volume with finger 4 however it has always been much weaker but it will improve with practise.

Barney

Matthew_Taylor;744660" said:

Thanks for the help. @Barney the little excercise is great, I have been practising it with a metranome starting slow to get the volume then speeding up trying to keep the volume, really helped. I am still practising the volume with finger 4 however it has always been much weaker but it will improve with practise.

cool....stick at it ..wont take long .

try these as well

-------5--------7----------8-------using fingers 1 3 and 4
and

---------5----------6------------8-----using 1 2 and 4

these can easily be made into scales later on by using the different exercises in different combinations on the different strings will give you 3 notes per string scales and good legato..