Hello friends,
I'm having a tough time getting decent sound out of hammer-ons, especially on the E string. What are your suggestions, secrets, and schemes?
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Hello friends,
I'm having a tough time getting decent sound out of hammer-ons, especially on the E string. What are your suggestions, secrets, and schemes?
On the mandolin with its small scale length and higher string tension it is always a problem getting a good hammer-on, Sheila. I play a lot of bagpipe tunes on my mandolin and octave and use both hammer-on and pull-off to try to get the effects of the bagpipes. I will generally aim to hammer on from an open string rather than from a fretted one, and it needs a fair bit of finger power to get a good clear sound. I prefer the octave for those tunes as the longer scale length gives me more sustain and seems to be easier to produce hammer-ons. For pull-offs I try to give the string(s) a sideways flick with the fretting finger as I pull off from the fret, rather than just a straight lifting off. There are examples of the tunes on my YT channel - see link below.
Hope this is of some help to you.
Just like all aspects of technique, it takes time and practice to develop decent hammer on and pull off. Make it a part of your practice sessions and you should see improvement over time. It certainly has taken me a while to develop any proficiency.
The secret lies in repetition.