https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/hammer-ons-slides-12-bar-blues-guitar-beginner
In this action-packed lesson, I’m going to give you three great exercises! The first one concentrates on playing hammer-ons, using all the fingers and all different strings. The second one is similar, except with slides. The third exercise is a great little 12-bar blues exercise that incorporates the hammer-on and slide knowledge we’ve already learned.
Has anyone else had issues downloading the TEF File for this. I get an error message each time.
I’m having trouble with the 12 bar blues TEF
It looks like there is a bad link there. I’ll pass it along to Ben and I suspect he’ll be able to take care of it.
Thanks!
I got it fixed. Thanks so much for letting me know!
Thank you for the speedy fix!
I can’t open the PDF or download the TEF file. Is it just my computer, or are the links bad? Thanks! Great exercise by the way!
Tim, I just downloaded and opened both. Might be a cache or permissions issue – maybe try rebooting?
Got it, thank you!!
Hi Tim you need Adobe Reader(or some other PDF software) to view & print PDF Files
You’ll need TablEdit or the Free TefView to Read, Play & Print off TEF TAB Files.
Check out this thread
I’m working on this lesson, and I am enjoying the tune, but I am having some trouble with the bit where you play 5 string fret 2 and then play fret 4 without unfretting fret 2 (timestamp 1:13 at https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/hammer-ons-slides-12-bar-blues-guitar-beginner/video/12-bar-blues-exercise). I find it pretty much impossible to fret 2 and 4 simultaneously without rotating my hand. To explain, here are some pictures:
Is there hope for me or will I just have to learn to rotate my hand? Maybe my fingers are just too short to play this properly?
I don’t know much about trying to fix these problems (that would be @BanjoBen, @Michael_Mark, or @Archie), but I do know there is always hope. I don’t believe that your fingers are too short, because my fingers are short and stubby (though short is determined by the viewer).
It might also help if you could get a front picture of both normal and rotated. It looks to me as if the pictures have your fingers straight up and down. You want your fingers a little slanted rather than rotating your hand drastically.
@LorenDB Yes, I think you are (almost) on the right track. In your normal pictures, notice that the neck is sitting flush on the base of the thumb. In your “rotated” you are opening up a gap between the base of the thumb and the neck. That gap is moving in the right direction, but I think how you are getting that gap could perhaps use a little tweak. When I simulate your normal position, I feel really tight and have a hard time doing what you are trying to do. Oddly enough, in the rotated pic, it looks like there is even more tension. What we want to do is drop the palm and the base of the thumb away from the neck AND do this in a way that releases tension. Try this: go to your normal position and fret the 5th string second fret. If I am looking at it correctly, your wrist will be bent backwards and there will be little to no free space between your palm and the neck. Now, relax your wrist and let it drop down and to the left, in the natural plane that wrist bends. If you do this correctly, this should be a totally relaxed position. When I do this, I have only three points of contact: the pad of my thumb, the top of my pointer finger (top/inside of pad) and the base of my pointer finger (about at the crease where the finger meets the hand). When I do this, I have a sizeable gap between my palm and the back of the neck. I can put my normal size computer mouse in there enough to hold it. It is also feels totally relaxed. I could sit like this for 30 minutes. I didn’t actually test that, but it seems like I could. This should be a more relaxed and capable default position. I think you can also tweak it a bit better by also dropping the elbow and arm a bit. And to your item of concern, I hope you can fret the fourth much easier. Let us know if that is making sense. If it doesn’t and you want to facetime or something similar, IM me. We can also get videos going on this thread if you prefer.
I think @Zachary makes a great point about the fingers pointing nearly perpendicular to the fretboard. It is generally easier to angle them so that they point at your right shoulder or ear. I think if you drop the wrist and elbow, that will help rotate things to where the finger pointing direction is much closer to ideal.
One last note… there are a few times I collapse my wrist up into the neck, most notably when doing something like doing an F chord with a wrapped thumb. However, when I do an F barre chord, the opposite happens, the wrist drops, the thumb moves to the back of the neck and a huge space is created between the neck and my palm. My point being, there are times for different thumb positions and wrist angles, so I don’t want to create a “rule” where one NEVER has a wrist that collapses up into the neck. It’s just not ideal for most playing.
Thanks for the heads up @Zachary but when comes to GEETAR Stuff I haven’t a clue. @BanjoBen @Flatpickin_Libby or @Michael_Mark would be my goto people if I had a guitar query.
I’ve noticed in the past few days that when I stand up to play, my arm is more free to swing out into a better position. That, combined with a healthy dose of regular practice, has helped me significantly with playing this exercise. Thanks for the pointers!
Excellent!, way to go! Glad to help!
