‘Hammer-ons from nowhere’ can blow your guitar playing wide open – and help you craft silky smooth, effortlessly fast and highly impressive solos

Hammer-ons and pull-offs have served guitarists faithfully over the decades, evolving from subtle embellishments through to trills and flamboyant flurries of notes. 

During the 70s, players like Jimmy Page (Stairway To Heaven), Eric Clapton (Crossroads), Paul Kossoff (All Right Now), Alvin Lee (I’m Going Home), and Jimi Hendrix (Little Wing) saw the potential for legato technique to facilitate Pentatonic licks that generated speed without requiring much effort from the picking hand. 

By 1978, Van Halen’s self-titled debut album saw Eddie expanding the hammer-on and pull-off concept to the picking hand, making way for tapped arpeggio sequences along the strings on songs like Eruption. In the 80s, Joe Satriani took legato a stage further by combining it with three-notes-per-string scale shapes, making way for fast, cascading sequences across the fretboard. 

By the early 90s, Greg Howe had developed a more intervallic approach to legato, seeing the hammer-on as a vehicle to start new phrases, change string, or access wide interval jumps without involving the picking hand. 

Howe labelled this technique ‘hammer-ons from nowhere’ and this approach is featured on tracks like A Delicacy, from Howe II’s 1991 album, Now Here This, and Desiderata, from Greg’s 1993 album, Introspection.

In more recent years, Tosin Abasi has taken the ‘hammer-ons from nowhere’ technique to new levels by using extended range guitars to expand the number of notes that can be accessed. In addition, the inclusion of palm muting and selective picking make way for a more rhythmic, textural effect, as heard on songs like Ka$cade, from the Animals As Leaders album, The Joy Of Motion. 

Other contemporary approaches to tapping have seen it evolve from linear, single-string phrases, á la Eddie Van Halen, to a vehicle to access wide intervals that skip strings. Players like Polyphia’s Tim Henson achieve this by fretting barre chords while tapping melodic sequences across the strings.

Alternatively, Guthrie Govan often uses string-skipped arpeggios combined with tapping; check out the scary stretch and tap plus string skip lick on his track, Fives.

In this lesson, we’ll explore the principles of hammer-ons from nowhere, intervallic phrases led by the fretting hand, tapping sequences that occur on a single string, as well as tapping arpeggiated sequences across multiple strings. Once you’ve worked through the individual exercises, each of the components will be brought together within the following two study pieces.

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 6, Bass 5, Middle 7, Treble 7, Reverb 1

Use your bridge pickup and raise the gain until you get some bite in your notes. A compressor pedal with the threshold set low and the ratio set high will balance the attack between legato and picked notes. Most importantly though, make sure your guitar’s action isn’t too high; aim for 1.5-2mm at the 12th fret. Finally, a set of .009 or .010 strings is common for easier legato.

Example 1. Descending arpeggios

This exercise is a starting point for fretting-hand control. It alternates between E Minor and Major triads played with a picked note, followed by hammer-ons for the remaining two notes. Don’t sustain any notes for too long (the palm muting helps here). Pick with a light upstroke to balance the volume with the hammer-ons. 

Example 2. Double-picked starting notes 

Here are the E Minor to E Major arpeggios again, but with the first note double picked to create four 16th note groupings per triad. Each beat begins with a down and an upstroke before hammering-on to the remaining notes. Palm muting will stop notes sustaining. Tosin Abasi is a fan of this double pick/hammer approach.

Example 3. Outlining a chord progression 

Now we move our triad shapes along the fretboard to outline a chord progression in E Minor. Make sure you only have one finger on the fretboard at any time. This helps the fretting hand to move between the fretboard positions at speed as you’ll only need to get your first finger in position before playing each new triad.

Example 4. Octave jumps and melodic sequences

Here we move between Amaj9, A9 and Am9 chords, with a fretting-hand hammer-on to achieve octave jumps between the roots of each chord. Further hammer-ons and pull-offs allow the 3rd, 7th, and 9th to form a melodic sequence. Downstrokes create momentum while the change in timbre brings shape to the sequence.

Example 5. Tapping exercises

In this sequence, we outline arpeggios along the sixth string by fretting root notes with the first finger, Major or Minor 3rds with the fourth finger, and tapping the 5th interval with a finger of the picking hand. 

For the Asus2 arpeggio, use your second or third finger to fret the 2nd degree of the scale. To stabilize the tapping hand and help with tapping accuracy, rest your wrist against the body, toward the upper side of the neck.

Example 6. Rhythmic displacement

This E Phrygian riff is created by tapping an E note at the 12th fret of the sixth string, pulling-off to an E on the open sixth string, and then hammering-on to another E note on the 7th fret of the fifth string. 

This three-note sequence displaces across the bar when repeated over the 16th-note subdivision and makes the phrases sound musical and more interesting. For melodic variation, the tapping finger moves to F and D notes during phrase endings.

Example 7. Tapping across several strings

This textural sequence is achieved by fretting Em7 and D chords and tapping diatonic notes at the 12th fret of the first, third, fourth, and fifth string. The tapped notes create a cascading, intervallic effect while extending the fretted chord harmony to Em11, and Dsus4 add9 creates a more interesting sonic landscape. 

Use the first (i) and second (m) fingers of your picking hand to tap through the string changes at speed, taking it slowly at first if you find it tricky.

Example 8. Arpeggios across two octaves

This Govan-like sequence combines picking hand-tapping, fretting-hand hammer-ons and pull-offs, and string skipping to play ascending and descending arpeggios across two octaves. 

To keep string changes defined, make sure you lift your tapping finger before the fretting hand hammers on to a new string. Additionally, use the inside of the fretting hand’s first finger to mute treble strings while the inside wrist of your tapping hand mutes idle bass strings.

Study Piece 1. Major Tonality

This piece begins with double-picked notes on open strings with the fretting hand hammering on arpeggio notes on the lower strings. It then moves to a string-skipped, two-octave Amaj7 arpeggio using tapping, plus hammer-ons and pull-offs from the fretting hand.

Next, the piece moves to arpeggios using single notes played on open strings while the fretting hand hammers on Major and Minor 3rd intervals along the fourth and fifth strings. 

Finally, a series of Major triads are executed along the second, third, and fourth string by playing the 5th interval of each triad with an upstroke from the first finger of the fretting hand, while hammering on each corresponding 3rd and root note with the second and third fingers of the fretting hand.

Study Piece 2. Minor Tonality

The piece opens with an E Phrygian riff featuring tapped notes on the sixth string and fretting-hand hammer-ons on the fifth string. From here, a new riff outlines Am9 and Am11 chords by hammering octaves of the root note, followed by hammer-ons, pull-offs, and strategic downpicked notes facilitating the accompanying melody. 

Each phrase ends with a series of powerchords using fretting-hand hammer-ons along the fourth and fifth string while the picking hand repicks the notes on the fourth string. 

Finally, the piece ends with the fretting hand holding down Em7, D, and C barre chords while the picking hand taps melodic sequences and extended harmony notes at the 12th fret of the first, third, fourth, and fifth strings. You may want to take things slowly at first.