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SEAN CONKLIN

Pedal Tone Legato

Be sure to check out Sean's immediate download e-book "SOLOING TECHNIQUES FOR GUITAR" now available here at CFH!
Hey everyone, my name is Sean Conklin. I'm the founder of the guitar resource website, www.infiniteguitar.com. Check it out to access guitar videos, lessons, chord finder software, tablature, reviews, music history, and tons more.

This technique is definitely one of my favorites. It's not that easy at first, but once you get the hang of it, it'll be like clockwork. Let's check it out...
First off, what exactly is pedal tone legato? With a guitar, a pedal tone is best explained as repeated notes that surround a melody. And legato is a style of playing in which notes are blended together smoothly, using techniques such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides. So, as you'll see in this lesson, pedal tone legato incorporates both of these concepts.
Practice this first exercise very slowly until you get the hang of it. This technique is tricky because there are a lot of things going on at the same time. Note that all the hammer-ons and pull-offs originate from "nowhere" on the A string. In other words, the notes before the hammer-ons and pull-offs are all on a different string, so your finger (preferably your ring finger) has to play the legato by itself, without any pick strokes from the picking hand.
This first exercise is played slowly in the mp3 and video examples, and the rest are at normal speed. Don't attempt the other ones until you get this one down accurately.
Next, we're going to make a small string-skipping variation that will add a little more texture to the riff. With every other "up stroke" of our picking hand, we're going to be playing the open G string as the pedal tone.
Now, let's try a different example without using any open strings.
Lastly, we'll put it all of it into a musical context.
This technique might feel awkward and unnatural at first, and that's totally normal. Keep with it, and it'll gradually begin to feel more comfortable to you.
And as always, go and write your own variations! You'll never truly master a technique on the guitar until you experiment with it on your own.
Have fun!
Sean Conklin