The Hammer - On
The hammer-on produces a note artificially by hammering a finger of the left hand onto a string. The impact of the string against the fretboard will cause the string to sound the note of the hammered fret. A hammer-on can be played on either the treble strings or the bass strings.
Example 35 features a hammer-on as part of a basic fingerpicking pattern for a G chord. A popular alternative finger for this chord is to use the 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers as shown in the chord diagram. The second finger of the left hand is used to hammer onto the second fret of the fifth string after the open fifth string is played. A hammer-on is indicated by a curved line and the symbol H.
G
Red River Valley is in the key of G using the chords G, G7, C, D and D7. The hammer-on technique introduced in example 35 is featured throughout the accompaniment with bass runs to connect some chords.
The Streets of Laredo is a traditional cowboy song in ^ time.
