Advice with pull offs

[Herb Hunter]

Originally Posted by Bern

Pull-off a stunt...Herb
Anyway, it's pulling your finger off the string in such a way that the next fretted note or open string will ring without actually playing it with your right hand. Multiple notes can be played this way in succession as well if the notes are fretted prior, of course. It's all practice...

Thanks. That is my understanding but the talk of needing to mute other strings made me wonder if I was wrong as I couldn't envision causing adjacent strings to vibrate in the process.

I agree that one should learn how to pull-off without having to rely on muting. The way I pull-off, I use more of a hammer movement (vertical) than a plucking one (horizontal). In that way, one can quickly do an entire run from the first to the sixth string without using the right hand at all.

[mmmaak]

Originally Posted by Herb Hunter

Thanks. That is my understanding but the talk of needing to mute other strings made me wonder if I was wrong as I couldn't envision causing adjacent strings to vibrate in the process.

I agree that one should learn how to pull-off without having to rely on muting. The way I pull-off, I use more of a hammer movement (vertical) than a plucking one (horizontal). In that way, one can quickly do an entire run from the first to the sixth string without using the right hand at all.

Hi Herb, I think I understand your confusion now. Doing an "inverse" hammer-on is indeed one way of executing a pull-off. However, a little more "bite" to the note is often desired, and that's where adding a little lateral angle to the pull-off comes into play, possibly exciting an adjacent string

I think it's quite possible to perform runs even with slightly lateral pull-offs. It just takes practice (there's that dirty word again!!) to get the angle right. A good setup may help too, as mentioned earlier.