ROCK LEGATO

From this month on Australian fretboard wizard and Fundamental Changes author Chris Brooks will hone your legato to create smooth, fluid lines.

Australian guitar wizard Chris Brooks demonstrates how to get your fretting hand playing long, smooth lines using legato.

It’s great to be back in GT, this time looking at fretting-hand concepts covered in my Legato Guitar Technique Mastery book. Playing legato is about creating smooth, tied-together lines that contrast the staccato sound of picking. In the coming months, you’ll build technique, cover the fretboard extensively and apply musical concepts used by the most influential legato players on guitar. Tone and technique go hand in hand to create the sound of legato playing, so it’s important to get the right start.

Amp compression and sustain are very useful for a legato-friendly tone to execute hammer-ons and pull-offs with clarity alongside picked notes. A typical signal chain for legato players includes humbucking pickups, a boost pedal, and a main gain source like a second drive pedal, or an overdriven amp. To dial in a smooth drive sound for legato, I would start by finding a crunch rhythm tone using your guitar and amp only, then increase the gain or boost with a pedal in front until the licks in this lesson sound smooth and well-connected from note to note.

Fretting technique plays an equally large role in the flow required for this approach. The ideal starting point involves the elbow, wrist, thumb and fingers all working together. Diagram 1a illustrates ineffective positioning that will not allow much of a span to reach higher notes along a string.

Diagram 1b illustrates the result of some simple adjustments. Using the tip of the first finger as a pivot point, bring your elbow in towards your body. This rotates the forearm and brings the wrist across to the other side of the planted finger. Reposition the thumb as shown, and it should be possible to stretch from the 5th fret of the sixth string to the 9th or 10th fret using the fourth finger, without feeling like you need large hands.

When working on the chromatic and diatonic technique-building examples, create a pivot point with the thumb, then use the elbow and wrist to roll each finger onto the fretboard, one at a time.

A common error is to lock the wrist into a rigid position and expect finger strength to produce all the motion. Train your fingers to act like a relay team passing a baton from member to member rather than a rugby scrum with everyone on deck, unless more fingers are really needed.

NEXT MONTH Chris has another lesson from his Fundamental Changes book on Rock Legato

TONE AND TECHNIQUE GO HAND IN HAND TO CREATE THE SOUND OF LEGATO PLAYING, SO IT’S IMPORTANT TO GET THE START RIGHT

Joe Satriani creates many of his fluid lines by using legato

Go for as smooth a tone as possible, with not too much treble. Set your amp to ‘just breaking up’ then add boost or overdrive to provide the required amount of gain. This will help the notes sing. A compressor placed at the front of the pedal chain will add further smoothness and sustain. Lastly, reverb or long delay will bring a studio quality to the sound.