Ep77 How to Play Legato on Guitar

Guitar Music Theory

Desi Serna

Musictheoryforguitar, Guitar, Guitarscales, Performing Arts, Guitarmusictheory, Music, Guitarlessons, Arts, Guitarchords, Guitartheory

4.6 • 931 Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2020

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this free guitar lesson, I explain and demonstrate what it means to play legato on guitar. Legato refers to the smooth transition between notes using hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides.

🎸 What do you SPECIFICALLY need to do in order to play guitar better? Visit https://GuitarMusicTheory.com - answer the questions about your playing and get FREE custom video instruction calibrated to your current level.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In episode 77 of the guitar music theory podcast. I am your host Desi Cerna
0:26.0	Today I'm gonna talk about legato. I'm gonna explain what it is why guitar players use it and how they do it. But before I get started, what do you need to be working on right now to become a better guitar player?
0:39.0	Go to my website, guitar music theory.com, answer the questions I ask you about your playing, and I'll send you free custom
0:46.7	video instruction calibrated to your current level. I'll show you what you specifically need to be working on right now in order to fill gaps in your playing
0:55.1	and move forward. Enroll in your free course now at guitar music theory.com, you can click
1:00.8	on the link in the podcast show notes.
1:03.0	All right, so let's dive in.
1:07.0	All right, so let's dive in.
1:13.0	All right, so let's dive in.
1:17.0	All right, so there are basically two ways that you can set strings in motion when you sound notes on guitar.
1:28.0	You could either use your picking hand like this. Or you can sound the notes using your fretting hand like this. Now you can't see what I'm doing, but you can't see what I'm doing, but you can probably hear the difference. When I pick all of the notes, I get a very clear defined attack on each note.
1:57.0	When I use my left hand the sound the notes I have to use hammer on and pull-offs and
2:06.7	slides in order to keep the string in vibration and the result is is that the notes sound slurred.
2:15.0	In music we call this slurred.
2:20.0	In music we call this slurred sound or the smooth transition between notes legato
2:28.2	L-E-G-A-T-O-L-G-T-O. Now guitars will play legato at times for two reasons. Number one, they might like the
2:39.3	sound of it and number two it eliminates pick strokes which can make some parts easier to play.
2:47.0	So for example, in a previous recent podcast episode I talked about the song Gravity by John Mayer and
2:57.7	the lead lines in that song are played in the pentatonic scale.
3:02.6	G major to be specific.
3:07.1	And to make some of those phrases sound legato, John Mayer moved through the scale horizontally on one
3:16.2	string using hammer-ons and pull-offs and slides.
	...

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