What? I’ve got to check this out. I like good singers almost as much as I like good guitarists, and Chris Cornell is at the top of my list. I’m learning some good new things today!
Recently he was in a trio with Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy, called the Winery Dogs. Awesome singer, awesome band!
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Oh, a thread about proper legato technique!
Grabs popcorn
Oh…wait…I work as moderator now!
Drops popcorn, starts sweating
Jokes aside you all actually did a great job with this discussion, thank you 
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It’s a breath of fresh air in contrast to other internet forums that people can have a detailed and informative debate about something with no obvious correct answer on here, rather than the usual “Everyone becomes increasingly aggravated with that one guy who continually asserts that the sky is actually down”
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That’s what I like about this forum. People here are openminded and are always open for a dsicussion.
Happy to have started all this 
Hey @carranoj25 Just realizing, even though I strove to make sure my intent in the discussion was civil but hopefully thought provoking, that I took things in a turn that diverged from your question. Sorry about that, bad manners on my part there.
Was there enough in responses, either to your initial question, or the twist I threw in (and responses to me) that get you what you needed for how you can move forward with descending hammers? Clearly we’ve got some members who are pretty knowledgeable on the topic. I want to make sure we get you what you needed, and hope I didn’t get in the way of that!
Hell yeah mate. I just got to up my legato game overall. it really seems like all the pros use a hammer on or pulloff here or there to seriously up their playing
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Well, to give tommo something to do:
HOs as well as POs are both wrong no matter which way they are executed, because they are not picked!
At least that is what I was taught in the 90s
Thomas
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Sorry to beat a dead horse, but re-reading this brought up an important point to consider. I’ve played piano for many years, and one of the biggest challenges on the instrument is the concept of legato. It’s an ideal that every historic keyboardist-composer from Bach to Chopin to Rachmaninoff has pursued in their playing and composition, and discussed with their students.
The fact is that the piano is a struck percussion instrument (like a dulcimer). The tone is produced by a soft felt hammer striking a string. There is literally no possible way to create a true legato slur from one note to another, each tone has a discrete attack. So the entire history of legato piano technique for at least 3 centuries is an art of illusion.
Pianists are trained to give this illusion of legato through overlapping tones. The key is depressed and held while the next key is played, there’s a brief moment of overlap where both tones are mixed, and then the first key is released. This chain continues for all the tones under a legato slur. The ear doesn’t perceive the overlapping “mixed” tones, especially at speed (otherwise a major scale would sound like a bunch of major/minor 2nd clusters). The listener only hears that the notes are smoothly connected.
Now, there is not a direct analogy to the technique Harrison is using here. We can’t have overlapping tones on a single string on the guitar. However the concept of creating an illusion to the ear is important here. In descending hammers, the listener really cannot perceive a microsecond gap between the release of the higher tone and hammered lower tone. The ear only hears the sequence of tones with the same tonal attack of the hammered tone. The fact that it’s not mechanically a “perfect legato” has less importance then the effect of the illusion of legato.
No disagreement on anything you said. What struck me was that Harrison felt it was important enough to say that while ascending, make sure you keep the note fretted and sounding until the next note is played. Obviously impossible when playing descending hammer ons. You are absolutely correct that it is the illusion we are creating at high speeds that sells the whole thing. If that’s true…why does he say we need to keep the note going as long as possible when ascending? Seems like that wouldn’t matter at the high speeds, because no one would hear the gaps.
At the very worst this is a little bit of double talk, at the best, just a little confusing I think. And that is in no way a challenge to his awesome technique. It’s just going back to my belief that these amazing guitarists aren’t right about everything.
Mainly being funny here…but in all seriousness, this is part of the problem with hanging on the every word of a technical master. What if Marshall Harrison had heard this in his formative years and decided to never play legato? We’d all be missing out on his accomplishments.
I guess Al is my whipping boy today, but here he makes sure we all know that if you have an elbow mechanic, you are wrong:
Now, Al is one of my favorites. He’s also very important in the development of shred, by his influence alone. But what he preaches here, I’m seriously bent out of shape by this, and it’s effing personal. I was 16 or 17 or however old I was when I got this video, I had some decent speed going. I watched this and felt crushed. I’d spent the last 2 - 3 years practicing hours every day and I was doing it wrong. I immediately brought in damage control and made sure to unlearn all the bad technique I had done and only use wrist motion. Unlearning is hard, and it takes time. By that point I had a part time job and was busting my butt to get good grades so that I could afford college. Time was precious. I count it as lost time, because we all know that I would have been just fine running with my elbow mechanic. I surely can’t fault Al Di Meola for stating what he feels right and passionate about, the blame lies with me, not questioning something someone said who was clearly a better player than I am/was/probably-ever-will-be.
Quick question, as far as the left hand goes - what is the difference between what it does with all hammer legato vs when we alternate pick everything? I’m not too keen on the all hammers sound all the time, but I find practicing it helps with left and right hand sync.
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When picking everything, the fretting fingers need only press firmly enough to fret the notes. With all hammers, the fingers must transfer enough energy into the string to sound the note, so the fingers must develop enough energy before they strike the string.
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Related (ish) question: are there any players who can do all-hammers reliably on acoustic?
I recall an amazing legato passage in Greg Howe’s “Desiderata” (on a nylon string I believe), but it may have involved pulloffs. Will see if I find it on YT
On an acoustic the noise of string vibrating between the nut and the lower fret would be much more audible. I’m not sure it’s a goal worth working toward.
That said, Michael Hedges did a lot of hammers from nowhere on acoustic and he sounded great so I don’t really know.
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Boom. Love Michael Hedges. Sort of apples and oranges with what he played and what the elite electric legato guys do though. Everything he did was so percussive. Electric legato involving all hammers, based on all prior discussion here, is to minimize any attack so it sounds like a horn player’s legato. Super smooth. Anyway, I need to go listen to Aerial Boundaries now.
Yes please! I’d love to see that if you find it! If he’s doing this and not pulling off and it sounds even (and it’s not a nylon with an internal pickup, but a mic’d accoustic nylon), I’ll retract all statements of ‘on the classical guitar, good sounding descending slurs must be done like Scott Tennant demonstrates’ lol
Same. About 10 years ago I went through a period where I played acoustic almost exclusively. I was listening to Michael’s music constantly.
Amazing song and amazing album. Oracle is another favourite.
Phil Keaggy is another MONSTER acoustic player (and electric actually). Are you familiar with his work at all? He was heavily influenced by Hedges with the percussive slap/harmonics/alt tuning stuff. He also shreds (single note scales) on acoustic…which I can’t say I’ve ever heard from Hedges. Aerial Boundaries was the only album of his I ever purchased. I loved it so much I never thought the need to hear anything else he did lol! I will check out Oracle.
Phil Keaggy is great. I just realized I haven’t listened to his playing in years, thanks for reminding me of him!
I think Aerial Boundaries, Taproot and Oracle are Michael’s “must have” albums. Live on the Double Planet is great too.
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I’ve bit my tongue on a number of occasions in this thread now, because Harrison is worlds beyond me and because there are some incredibly thoughtful players already discussing this…
…but his writing off of “Petrucci-type ‘rock’ legato” really didn’t sit well with me when I first saw this video, and hasn’t gotten better with time. Is Marshall Harrison a far more accomplished technician than me? Absolutely. Is he, technically speaking, not wrong, that a hammer-on/pull-off approach that doesnt rely on picking but does seek to produce a clear, defined attack on every note, not “legato” in the classical sense? Again, absolutely. Is it still a perfectly valid, musically distinct, and effective way of playing passages on the guitar, that conveys a unique loose, flowing, musical vibe? Yeah, it is, and writing it off as not worth pursuing for philosophical reasons is kind of closing a door for no good reason at all.
Again, dude can place circles around me, but that seemed like an example of taking musical purism too far… even before you eviscerated his entire premise by casually pointing out that even what he is doing isn’t really, technically speaking, legato either.
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