One thing that I used to be very proficient at on the guitar was a smooth legato technique, ala Holdsworth or Satriani. Whenever I try this sort of technique on Stick, however, I always seem to stumble on the descending (pull-offs). I have been and will continue to woodshed with the ol' metronome, but I just don't seem to be progressing as quickly as I should. What was once possible with the left hand using four fingers should doable in the other hand as well, even with the 3-finger technique.

Besides repeated trilling between a couple of notes, I don't think I've even seen another Stickist playing all hammer-ons and pull-offs in a fluid, seamless manner when moving through scalar patterns. Is there anyone out there who has some tips on this issue? I love the sharp, staccatto sound of individually tapped notes, but the legato sound is (IMHO) just as important.

This is almost the "Holy Grail" of Stick playing in my opinion. How do you make tapping sound less like tapping?
At present I resort to a combination of slides, pull-offs and lucky mistakes.

This article on Adam Fulara's website deals specifically with playing Bach, but there are some general observations about the dynamics of tapping and being able to control descending lines:
http://adam.fulara.com/e.php?g=article&nr=2

Cheers,
Andy

Hi Matt,

Players like Holdsworth use oodles of compression, which blurs the attack substantially.
A good compressor with a very fast attack setting will do what you are looking for.

When you talk about this kind of playing are you talking two-handed lines or playing in one hand? For two-handed lines the best example in my own work I can point you to is the beginning of Water on the Moon which has a lot of the kind of legato hammer-ons and pulloffs that you're talking about, on the bass strings.

For a one-handed example, I think the melody of "Charmed Life" is a good illustration, as written in The Stick Book, with all of the slides and pulloff's, it sounds very different than it would without them. Sometimes at seminars I play the tune without any of these just to show how they are integral to the flow of the melody.

Come to think of it, there's a lot of good stuff in Chapter 9 on this very subject...

And as I always say, if you use hand motion along the string to activate tapped notes and support the timing of pull-offs, they will be much more fluid than just trying to play them with finger motion alone, especially when descending. The hand motion has a way of cutting off the high note just in time to articulate the low note, without having to think about timing the release of the higher note

Bob Culbertson has recently posted some new videos, and I remember thinking that he had some incredibly fluid and fast runs all over the board. Not sure if we're talking about the same thing, but I recommend checking out his blues that he posted.

I also love holdsworth and the legato school of soloing. Its wierd cause Allan said that he lifts off the finger and then hammers the next note down on a descending run, contrary to the popular "pull to the side" technique of rock guitar - in order to avoid a "meeow" type of sound of traditional pull offs.

Having only had the stick a couple of weeks its probably a bit early to comment but I agree its harder than on guitar, moreso on the right hand than left hand on the melody. So its either an angle of attack or a practise thing. I cant imagine much cooler than a legato solo on melody with funk bass or bass chords! We should be able to achieve it cause Allan said he specifically changed around his picking so that one couldn't tell if a note was picked or hammered, and this is a problem we happily don't have to deal with!

For inspiration Holdsworth is great, but also check out Shawn Lane! He is basically unbelievable, pretty much my favorite player, little known and unfortunately passed on. Man I can't say enough about this guys solos, especially the legato runs. From the two handed camp, Jim Wright did a song "Allan's room" which is pretty cool and TJ Helmerich is also worth checking out. You guys probably have heard of all of the above but I just got excited when I saw your post about the possibility of you woodshedding and becoming the Holdsworth of stick! Good luck with the practise and i'll be trying to do the same thing, though as a stick novice!

Is it even possible for you to answer someone's post without pimping out your own version of stick propaganda? You have a subtle, underhanded way of promoting yourself while diminishing anything contrary to your interests. It's unbecoming.

Tritone

God. I can't believe Stickist.com has it's own troll living under the bridge.

I agree. Legato is one of the harder aspects to do well because it's all about control. I don't think anyone has been able to master it on the stick yet. I think Bob does it fairly well but there's plenty of room for growth in the stick world.

Also, interesting article. Thanks for linking it.

Tritone

Indeed. Shawn Lane had monster legato technique. Remember seeing a vid where he talked about getting away from anchoring his first finger as much and spreading that leverage across all four and working on legato between each of the fingers specifically. So that it's less about a general movement toward the first finger and more about the relationships between each finger.

It's a shame there's so little material on him. Gotta love the Memphis Monster.

tritone

Thanks for the Adam Fulara link Andy. That guy's definitely some sort of prodigy, and he makes the best faces ever...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c46fr2EZOhQ

Kris