Hi all,
As some of you fine folks know, I’m trying out clawhammer style banjo after years of flatpicking and many years of Scruggs-style banjo picking. I’ve recently learned about a particular clawhammer “ornament” technique and am wondering whether it’s ever used in flatpicking or 3-finger banjo playing.
“Alternate string” hammer-ons and pull-offs, as I understand them, are when you use your fretting hand (rather than your picking hand) to sound notes on strings other than the string sounded immediately before. For example, a standard, say, “0-2” hammer-on would involve sounding an open string and then hammering on the 2nd fret of that same string, while an “alternate string” hammer-on would be, say, sounding an open string and then hammering on a the 2nd fret of some OTHER string that wasn’t sounded before, resulting in both notes sounding at once.
Similarly, an “alternate string” pull-off would be sounding one string and then “plucking” a different string without fretting it first. The pluck usually results in an open note so the “pluck” can happen at any fret with the same result.
This seems to be a common technique in clawhammer, but I’ve never heard of it being used for other picking techniques on either guitars or banjos. Has anyone else ever heard of that being used outside of clawhammer?
Thanks in advance.
