How Hammer-Ons, Pull-Offs, and Slides Can Make Your Guitar Solos Sing

Playing a solo is a lot like speaking—or singing—with your instrument. The notes are the syllables that you combine into words and phrases to make a statement or tell a story on your guitar.

So far in this series on soloing basics, we’ve created phrases by arranging notes, drawn from scales or chords, into short sequences of pitch and rhythm. In this lesson we’ll add an element that brings out the vocal quality of a solo even more: using slurs to connect notes. On guitar, the core slurring techniques are hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides, all of which allow you to sound multiple notes with a single pick or finger stroke. While picking each individual note gives you clear articulation and separation between notes, slurs create a more flowing (legato) sound and open up many expressive possibilities.

In this lesson we’ll be using the A natural minor scale (A B C D E F G), so we’ll first take a look at that scale in open position, and then we’ll practice short phrases that use slurs. Finally, we’ll play a couple of solos over a chord progression based on George Gershwin’s “Summertime,” using hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides to create vocal-like lines.

Minor Details

In previous lessons in this series, we played solos using the E minor pentatonic scale (on a 12-bar blues, in the July/August 2025 issue) and the G major scale (on the progression from John Prine’s “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,” September/October 2025). This time, we’ll work up to soloing on “Summertime” in the key of A minor, and our vocabulary of notes comes from the A natural minor scale.

Example 1 shows the A minor scale from the lowest to the highest notes available in open position. You may recognize that this A minor scale has the same notes as a C major scale, except the 1 (root) is an A.

Hammers and Pulls

Now let’s check out some one-measure phrases using notes from the A minor scale and incorporating hammer-ons and pull-offs. To gear up for soloing over the gospel-style “Summertime,” play with a swing feel (so pairs of eighth notes sound like the first and third notes of a triplet), as we did in the earlier blues lesson.

First, a quick comparison. Play measure 1 of Example 2a, picking every note with alternating downstrokes and upstrokes as shown. Then, in measure 2, play the exact same phrase, but with two hammer-ons, which allow you to sound four notes with two pick (or finger) strokes. Play the hammer-ons with your middle finger: drop it onto the fretboard with just enough force to sound the notes at the second fret. Notice how different the phrase sounds with slurs connecting the notes.

For another comparison, play Example 2b, first by picking all the individual notes (measure 1) and then with two pull-offs from D to C on the second string (measure 2). When doing each pull-off, keep your first finger pressed on fret 1. As you release the note on fret 3 with your third finger, pull slightly downward across the string (toward the floor, not straight up) so the lower note sounds clearly.

The phrase in Example 2c is all eighth notes, but two hammer-ons and a pull-off allow you to sound them with five pick strokes. On the last beat, keep your second finger resting on the fourth string as you pull off the fifth string—that’ll ensure the fourth string stays muted during the pull-off.

The two phrases in Example 2d open with eighth-note triplets: three eighth notes that fit into one beat. The slurs make the triplets sound smoother and also easier to play, especially at a faster tempo.

Slip Sliding Away

Adding slides to the mix helps bring out the vocal quality more. Example 3a, for instance, incorporates slides up and then down on the fifth string that make the line hang together more than if you picked every note.

Staying within the first three frets, as we’ve done so far, doesn’t allow much space for slides. But extending just a bit up the neck, to the fifth fret, opens up some sweet slide territory. As you know from tuning your guitar, you can fret a string at the fifth fret (or in the case of the G string, fourth fret) to match the pitch of the adjacent higher string. So instead of playing, say, the open first string, you can opt to play the same pitch on the second string at the fifth fret—and then you can slide up to or down from that note.

Check out Example 3b. Play it first using the open first string, as shown in measure 1. Then play all the notes on the B string, as in measure 2, sliding your ring finger up to and down from the fifth fret. Notice how the phrase sings much more that way? The same is true of Example 3c: play the phrase using the open second string, then by using slides on the third string.

In Example 3d, play a bluesy line with slides on both the third and second strings.

Extended Slurs

You can put multiple slurs together to create longer connected phrases. On the first two beats of Example 4a, combine a hammer-on with a slide to climb up to the fifth fret on the B string; then at the end of the measure, do the reverse.

In Example 4b, play a double slide on the first three notes: pick the D note and then slide up to an E and back to the D without picking the string again. You can slur this phrase even more: in measure 2, play the same notes but add a hammer on beat 2, so you are sounding the first four notes with one pick stroke. Then in measure 3, play the same notes again but add yet another hammer between beats 2 and 3—so that’s six notes tied together with slurs.

Grace Note Slurs

One other great way to use slurs in soloing is for grace notes—the quick notes added as an embellishment to another note, indicated with small noteheads (and a line through the stem) and small numbers in tab.

In the first bar of Example 5a, play two grace note hammer-ons from the open third string to the second fret. The main note (A) should still sound like it’s on the beat; the grace note is tucked in as a decoration that doesn’t change the basic rhythm but adds a kind of emphasis to the main note. In measure 2,play grace note hammers on both the second string and the third.

Grace note slides are very effective as well. In the first two measures of Example 5b, play grace note slides up to the fifth fret (using your third finger). In measure 3, play a grace note that slides down from the fifth to the third fret.

Solo Time

Let’s apply these ideas to a couple of solos over “Summertime.” People harmonize this song in many ways; my take has fairly quick chord movement—especially rocking back and forth between Am and E7—but all simple chords. On the video rhythm track, I used a swing-style quarter-note strum, sometimes with a bass note only on the downbeat.

Example 6 shows a first solo pass that uses many hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides, including a number of grace notes (pickup bar, 8, 10, 14). Like the melody of “Summertime,” the solo starts with a short phrase leading to the beginning of the song’s 16-bar form on the i chord (Am).

Throughout I am using notes from the A minor scale but am also guided by the chord changes, as we’ve discussed in previous lessons. Particularly on important changes like the Dm, F, and E7 in measures 5–7, the solo emphasizes notes in each of those chords. I have the “Summertime” melody in mind, too, echoing some of its melodic shapes and rhythms in these lines.

The Ex. 6 solo stays in open position and mostly on the bottom four strings. Now try a second pass in Example 7 that leans more into slides and moves up to the fifth fret on the high strings. This solo includes a few triplets (measures 10 and 15). Like the “Summertime” melody, the solo has a lot of phrases that start or end on offbeats.

Without the slurs, these solos would sound much more mechanical and a lot less musical. Keeping this approach in mind, now try making up your own solos—you’ll find an extended rhythm track at the end of the video to practice over. Look for ways to connect notes and sing through your guitar.