Y I No Can Do Legato?
 

Hey guys.


As a metal player I've always tried to make sure I've got my technique down and that I'm not just wanking.

Admittedly I've always had a little bit of a problem ever since I first started playing guitar. My legato technique, specifically pull-offs and hammer on's that include tapping an extra note further down the neck of the guitar.


I don't know if it's my technique or the guitars I'm using but every time I try to pull off during my playing at moderate-fast speed the sustain of my notes are really bad. The notes quickly die out (yielding a faint sound of the note or notes). Same thing with hammer on's that include tapping in an extra note. As soon as I tap that extra note the vibration of my string seems to die.

I suspect your technique is not correct or you're trying to play at too fast speeds for your skill. Could you upload a vid of yourself playing any legato thing both very slow and fast so people over here would be able to name your problem for sure?

could be a setup thing, I tried a guitar once that was shit even though it seemed to play nice. Relief is the main thing

Could be a setup thing? It might not be though. I'm interested to find out, when pulling off do you literally just taking your finger off (what I used to for a long time) or do you actually catch the string with the finger you're pulling off with? pretty much your left hand picking the note if you get me?

I dunno if this was an obvious thing that you are actually doing but I actually didn't know about this back in the day, I'm interested to find out if other people are in the same boat I was?

Either way this really helped me start to play smoother and cleaner, even though my legato aint awesome it's just little things like this that really helped me. :)

Can you post a video of this?

Can you do it slowly? Does it mute / dies as fast if you try to do a hammer from open string to 5 or 7th fret?

Think more flick off than pull but you need to upload a video as others have said

Also on topic to what I said...here's Guthrie showing you a lot better xD

If you are sure your technique is right, try using lighter strings (9s for example). From my own experience, going from 11s to 7s made legato-playing much easier. And it sounded better.