Hi, how'ya doing, Justin here!
Welcome to this last lesson in the Folk Fingerstyle Module,
where we're gonna be learning how to add hammer-ons and flick-offs into our patterns.
Now, this is quite tricky. The first time I learned it, I really struggled with it,
so, expect it to take a little bit of time to learn, but if you are going to continue
your path into folk fingerstyle, and you're gonna learn some James Taylor, or
Tommy Emmanuel, Andy Mckee, any of those kinda complex guys, you're gonna need to
learn this technique. It's gonna take some practice. What I'm gonna do in this lesson,
I've written out four patterns, which use some of the common kind of ideas and
I'm gonna take you through each one and explain what's going on. So, when you
come across them in the real world, you'll understand how to go about practicing them
and the difficulties that you might face. It's a lot of fun and you don't wanna
always have to pick every note that you're gonna play. So, using hammer-ons and
flick-offs is very-very common. So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna have look
at the right hand and then the left hand (the fretting hand and then the picking hand)
for each one of the patterns and hopefully you'll get it, you'll sort them out and
you'll be able to incorporate these into your playing as well and of course,
remember, that once you've learned this, you might wanna think back to when you
made up your own patterns, and maybe make up some of your own patterns that
also use these hammer-ons and flick-offs too.
So, let's get to a close-up and check out pattern 17.
♪
OK, that's the first pattern. Now, what what we've starting-off here is with our
little finger on the 3rd fret of the 2nd string. (♪)
And it's flicking-off onto the 1st fret of the 2nd string.
♪
Now, the trick here is, that it has to flick-off exactly at the end.
1-and-2; and then we're playing with the thumb. So, 1-and-2-and-3
Now this one, the part on beat 3, we've just played the open 2nd string,
lifting our 1st finger off, and we hammer it down at exactly the same time as
our thumb plays on the 3rd beat. So: 1, and, 2, and, 3
And we're not playing that one. Make sure you recognize it,
that's a hammer-on. 1, and, 2, and, 3, and, 4
And now here: and-4 So you're flicking this off,
little finger's flicking off, at exactly the same time
the thumb is playing the 4th string (♪)
Which feels really weird when you start-off with;
this stuff's gonna feel awkward, you know.
but just do it like this slowly. Really slowly.
1-and-2-and-3-and-4 1-and-2-and-3-and-4
That's how you're gonna have to do it. Just real slow
♪
Ok, I want you to see clearly now, how little this hand is doing
for that seemingly quite complicated pattern. Thumb and 2nd finger together,
flick-off, thumb, 2nd finger, thumb, 3rd finger, thumb; and that's it!
So: ♪
It's really part of the trick here is getting the...resisting the urge
to go: ♪
because your fingers gonna naturally wanna play it.
Flick.
And here: just the thumb.
And hammering the 1st finger down.
♪
Ok, we've got a few interesting things going on here:
♪
Playing the thumb and the 2nd finger, we're now on the G chord of course,
we've moved from C to G; flicking-off little finger to 1st finger
Thumb, playing the open
Now we've got thumb and 2nd, or 1st finger-doesn't really matter
Flick-off, then: ♪
We've got little finger going down, so we're changing the bass note
instead of ♪ we're now going 1-and-2-3-4
We're adding this F note in there. It makes it like a G7
♪
So, it'll be thumb, playing that note there, the F, 3rd fret of the 4th string,
♪
It's just a really cool little pattern I want you to see the idea, that
sometimes the bass notes can change.
As well as incorporating your flick-offs and hammer-ons as well.
♪
Ok, let's check-out the picking hand.
Ok, so we're starting here with our 2nd finger, and the bass note being played
flicking-off, thumb, 2nd finger, thumb and 1st finger, flick-off, thumb, 1st
♪
OK, this is pattern 19. This is a fun one, because we're
now using our travis picking; 5th string, 4th string, 6th string, 4th string,
So, on our C: ♪
When we're doing it in open position, make sure, use your 3rd finger to move over.
Don't: ♪
Of course there's enough fingers to hold all of the strings down, but then
♪
It all just flows together.
You want that kind of definition that moving the finger gives you.
And we're adding in the hammer-ons and flick-offs.
♪
So, here hammer your little finger in the 2nd string 3rd fret
♪
Bass, open, bass, 3rd finger playing the 3rd fret of the thinnest string
and then that's gonna flick-off at exactly the same time as you pluck the 4th string.
That was really hard to do slow, but anyway:)
♪
Thumb and 2nd finger start-off here.
With a hammer-on, thumb, 3rd finger,
thumb on the thickest string, 3rd finger playing the thinnest string and then the flick-off
happening at exactly the same time as the thumb-
♪
Really think when you've got the flick-off try and connect the moving of your thumb
with the flick-off; so it's almost like it becomes one movement.
♪
'Cause thumb's just playing that one note.
But you have to connect the thumb with that
flick-off movement, 'cause if the flick-off comes
too early, or too late, it'll just sound wrong.
Ok, and pattern number 20
♪
We've got here we're on G;
Pick, flick-off the 1st finger from the 1st fret to the open
♪
then 1st finger, open, 2nd finger, open.
♪
Works nice kind of to see that one.
♪
Let's look at the picking hand.
♪
Starting with thumb on the thickest string,- we're on a G chord of course,- 3rd finger,
playing the thinnest string, flick-off, thumb, 2nd finger, then thumb and 2nd,
flick-off, thumb and 1st, flick-off.
♪
Incorporating your hammer-ons and flick-offs into your fingerstyle patterns
is most likely gonna be difficult and require quite a few hours of practice.
I do think it's worth it and you'll find that
all of the great fingerpickers use this technique.
The thing that you probably wanna do now is go back and try and make up some of
your own patterns that use it. That's probably the best way to go about it now.
Either that, or have a go at learning some James Taylor, or Tommy Emmanuel, or
one of the great fingerpickers;.
Chet Atkins maybe, or Merle Travis and see,
if you can actually work out their tunes and see the way they're using it
and putting it into practice. Those that've bought the DVD version of this series
will have the bonus material, where I'm gonna do some actual songs
and incorporate all of the ideas that we've done in this course, so
some of you are probably gonna be checking that out now, which is good for me
and good for you, buying the DVD really helps support all of the free stuff, so
if you've enjoyed this, you wanna check out the bonus material and
go and pick up the DVD off the website and check out the extras, I'm sure you'll dig'em.
Hope you've enjoyed the course, take care of yourselves and
I'll see you for much more guitar lessons, licks, riffs, tricks, songs and all that stuff
I can't speak now, my mouth has gone dry I've been doing all that,-I've actually done
nearly all of these lessons in one run-through,- and just a funny little
insider thing, doing this last little intro has taken about 5000 gazillion takes,
which I find funny, 'cause most of the rest of it's been plain sailing, like 1, or 2 goes
on all of these and they've just sailed through.
Ridiculous how life works sometomes anyway. Take care of yourselves,
have a lovely time with these fingerstyle patterns and I'll see you for much more very soon.
Take care, bye-bye!