This video is a guitar lesson on another relatively simple yet essential guitar-playing technique: the pull-off. And, as its name suggests, the technique involves you sounding a note by pulling off the string with the fretboard-hand finger instead of picking it. So, you pick a note and then carry out a pull-off to sound another note that’s lower on the same string without picking again. So, just like it’s sibling — the already covered hammer-on — you get two notes for the price of one pick — a bargain!! And this technique sounds cool, too — a little smoother and more flowing than picking both notes. The fancy, music-theory name for the resulting smoothness? As mentioned in the accompanying video — it’s legato.
And, talking of the hammer-on, if you haven’t already mastered this technique, then I strongly recommend you do so before tackling the pull-off. Below is a link to that lesson:
How to Play Hammer-ons | Guitar Lesson
Anyway, back to the subject of this lesson: the pull-off. Here are five pull-off tips/rules mentioned in the accompanying video:
Five Pull-Off Tips/Rules
- Fret the note you’re pulling off from in the usual way — namely, using your fingertip placed just behind the fret.
- Ensure the note you intend to pull off to is fretted before you do the deed!! This is pretty darned important — unless your plan is to pull off to the open-string note, of course, in which case no fretting is necessary!
- Make sure you don’t inadvertently pull the whole string down while carrying out the pull-off. Why? Because doing so will cause both notes — the one you’re pulling off from and the one you’re pulling off to — to sound sharp and out of tune, that’s why!
- Remember, the pull-off is done in a downward direction so that the action effectively plucks the string — remember, it’s called a pull-off, not a lift-off!!
- Try to mute as many strings as possible as taught in the video. To paraphrase Sweetwater’s good friend and guitar teacher extraordinaire Paul Gilbert: “The string you’re playing on is your friend — the other ones are your potential noise-making enemies, especially when you’re using a lot of gain.” So, muting them as best you can is not only a good idea, it’s often “a must.” All is revealed in the video.
As shown at the end of the video, the TAB notation for a pull-off is pretty simple. As illustrated in the five licks below, it’s merely a curved line above the two notes involved — the note that’s picked and the note that is pulled off to that follows. This curved line goes from left to right: starting above the picked note and ending above the note that’s being pulled off to. Simple, right?!
As promised, here are the five simple A minor pentatonic* pull-off licks taught in the video. As always, start slowly — don’t be tempted to run before you can walk!
*Minor Pentatonic Scale
If you don’t know the all-important minor pentatonic scale yet, then merely click here, and all will be revealed.
Practice this quintet, and you’ll not only master this vital technique, but you’ll build up strength and dexterity in your pinky, too. See you in another lesson soon; pull away and have fun!