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Hammer-on
 
 
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Hammer-on is a stringed instrument playing technique performed (especially on guitar
Guitar

The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six Strings , but Tenor guitar, Seven-string guitar, Eight-string guitar, Ten-string guitar, Eleven-string guitar, Twelve-string guitar, Thirteen-string guitar and doubleneck guitar string guitars also exist....
) by sharply bringing a fretting-hand finger down on the fingerboard
Fingerboard

The fingerboard is a part of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of wood that is adhesive to the front of the neck of an instrument and above which the strings run....
 behind a fret
Fret

A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western culture instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard....
, causing a note
Note

In music, the term note has two primary meanings: 1) a sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound; and 2) a pitched sound itself....
 to sound. This technique is the opposite of the pull-off
Pull-off

A pull-off is a string instrument technique performed by plucking a string by "pulling" the string off the fingerboard with one of the fingers being used to fret the note....
. Passages in which a large proportion of the notes are performed as hammer-ons and pull-offs instead of being plucked or picked in the usual fashion are known in classical guitar terminology as legato
Legato

In musical notation the Italian word legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly. That is, in transitioning from note to note, there should be no intervening silence....
 phrases.






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Hammer-on is a stringed instrument playing technique performed (especially on guitar
Guitar

The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six Strings , but Tenor guitar, Seven-string guitar, Eight-string guitar, Ten-string guitar, Eleven-string guitar, Twelve-string guitar, Thirteen-string guitar and doubleneck guitar string guitars also exist....
) by sharply bringing a fretting-hand finger down on the fingerboard
Fingerboard

The fingerboard is a part of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of wood that is adhesive to the front of the neck of an instrument and above which the strings run....
 behind a fret
Fret

A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western culture instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard....
, causing a note
Note

In music, the term note has two primary meanings: 1) a sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound; and 2) a pitched sound itself....
 to sound. This technique is the opposite of the pull-off
Pull-off

A pull-off is a string instrument technique performed by plucking a string by "pulling" the string off the fingerboard with one of the fingers being used to fret the note....
. Passages in which a large proportion of the notes are performed as hammer-ons and pull-offs instead of being plucked or picked in the usual fashion are known in classical guitar terminology as legato
Legato

In musical notation the Italian word legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly. That is, in transitioning from note to note, there should be no intervening silence....
 phrases. The sound is smoother and more connected than in a normally picked phrase, due to the absence of the otherwise necessity to synchronise the plucking of one hand with the fingering on the fretboard with the other hand; however, the resulting sounds are not as brightly audible, precisely due to the absence of the plucking of the string, the vibration of the string from an earlier plucking dying off. The technique also facilitates very fast playing because the picking hand does not have to move at such a high rate, and coordination between the hands only has to be achieved at certain points. Multiple hammer-ons and pull-offs together are sometimes also referred to colloquially as "rolls," a reference to the fluid sound of the technique. A hammer-on is usually represented in guitar tablature (especially that created by computer) by a letter h. A rapid series of alternating hammer-ons and pull-offs between a single pair of notes is called a trill
Trill (music)

The trill is a ornament consisting of a rapid alternation between two adjacent notes of a scale . It is sometimes referred to by the German triller or the Italian trillo....
.

See also

  • Pull-off
    Pull-off

    A pull-off is a string instrument technique performed by plucking a string by "pulling" the string off the fingerboard with one of the fingers being used to fret the note....
  • Tapping
    Tapping

    Tapping is a playing technique generally associated with the electric guitar, although the technique may be performed on almost any stringed instrument....
  • Shredding