Looking back, on the track, for a little green bag...

henke on 15/1/2007 at 17:09

So I'm over at a friends place last friday and we're playing Yatzi (with me loosing), drinking beer and listening to the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L1hD5OlPtw) "Little Green Bag" comes on and I'm like "has anyone ever heard anything else by these George Baker guys?" and everyone is like "Naaah".

Next day, I'm at the flea market, hung over, and I see this LP, "George Baker Selection - De Grootste Hits"(turns out they're Dutch), and I buy it, for one euro. When I get home I realize that I don't actually have an LP player so I download a greatest hits collection and God damn! There's a reason they never had any other hits, they suck. Next to "Little Green Bag", (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ7FFL1BlF0) this is about as good as it gets. So I was just looking at the back of the LP and see the writing credits for the songs, they're all attributed to H.Bouwens(aka George Baker), except for "Little Green Bag" which is written by Baker AND J. Visser.

So, I goes on the internets... and does some sleuthing. Who is this guy? The guy who might very well be the only little bit of musical genius behind George Baker Selection's entire discography? A nerd, that's who. Here's his (http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/who/jan.htm) Model Airplane/Flight sim page. Looks like he's devoting himself fully to playing with RC planes these days so I guess we can't expect any more musical masterpieces from this guy.

Anyway, I'm trying to learn to play "Little Green Bag" on my guitar but I don't quite know how to do hammer-ons and pull-offs. Can someone tell me? A page I looked it up on says you should hit the string to do a hammer-on. Well I'm hitting and I'm hitting but I'm not getting much sound. :confused:

Fingernail on 15/1/2007 at 17:21

a hammer on:

you have one note held and another finger prepared above a higher fret.
you play the note
before it loses too much volume (ie. pretty quickly in most cases), you "hammer" your prepared finger onto the higher note, which sounds it enough without having to play it with your right hand.

for a pull off you do the same in reverse, that is have two fingers down on the same string, then play and pull the higher one off, which plucks the string enough to sound the lower note.

edit:
also, try to keep your fingers more or less perpendicular to the strings; as square with the frets as possible, this should give a more even tone.

and don't try to pull from your elbow or shoulder, try to keep the movement as far as possible in the hand, and fingers alone. If your whole hand or arm moves, then it's too much effort for one pull-off.

jay pettitt on 15/1/2007 at 17:39

They're not so hard when you know how.

So there you are with your first finger on the 3rd fret of the top e-string and your 3rd finger on the 5th fret of same string. Play the string and you get something that hopefully sounds like a nice clean A.

Pull your 3rd finger off (giving the string a little flick by dragging on the string ever so slightly as if you were about to bend the note before releasing) and you get something that hopefully sounds like a nice clean G.

Pull your 1st finger off (again with a little flick) and you get something that ought to sound like a nice open E.

That's 2 pull offs pretty much mastered.

Hammer ons are kind of the opposite. Instead of taking your finger away you add a new finger. Twang the open E string again and whilst the note plays add finger 1 to the third fret. If you're half arsed about it you'll just muffle the note so you need to do it with a tiny bit of zing so your finger hits the string sort of like a piano hammer would. You ought to be hearing the note of G.

That would be a hammer on.

If you were to hammer on and pull off the same notes repeatedly in quick succession you get a trill. And you can hammer on and off with chords also. Play a C chord and hammer on and pull off with the first finger on the 1st fret on the B sting for pretty noises. Everyone's other favorite is to play a D chord and use your little finger to hammer on and pull off on the 3rd fret of the top E.

Huzzah.

edit
actually the flick thing I wrote is a bit misleading and might not help much. If you were about to bend the 1st string you'd want to push the string upwards - towards the centre of the fretboard. When you do a little flick to make a pull off ring you'll almost always drag the string a tiny bit in the downwards direction before letting it ping.

Parker'sSire on 15/1/2007 at 18:09

whoa...
George Baker Selection.

most people forget they did this one too...
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYTIwkfChQM&mode=related&search=) Paloma Blanca

Just watch the excitement on the faces and in the performances of the band on this video.

It only took Baker 5 years to go from extremely cool, to, uh, something else.

(but, then again, it WAS a big hit)

henke on 15/1/2007 at 18:36

Thanks jay and Fingernail :)

I think I see how it's done now, just one little question.

Code:

(0:09):

"Yeah...."
G --------------h3---------------------------------------------------|
D -0h3-5--3h5--5--5--0h3h5----------5h7----------h3-----------3-4-5--|
A -------------------------3-4-5--------5--3h5--5--5--0h3h5----------|
E -------------------------------------------------------------------|

When it says 0h3, I go from open string to 3rd fret, right? But what about when it just says h3? Am I still supposed to start with open string?

Yeah, Parker's Sire, I know that was another of their big hits. I guess musically, it's solid, but it's just too damn cheery and feel-good for my tastes. Sounds like something my mom would listen to. Well, since the LP will probablly end up in her collection anyway, maybe that's for the best.

Fingernail on 15/1/2007 at 19:21

it probably means you just hit the note with the left hand rather than play it with the right hand at all - so just whack your finger down hard enough to sound the note. This is easy on an electric, quieter and harder on acoustic.

(although that's a bass tab being only 4 strings so the assumption would be it's designed for an electric bass of which all kinds of hammer ons and snaps are possible)

henke on 15/1/2007 at 19:22

Ah yes, I was afraid of that. Yeah, I got an acoustic.

Fingernail on 15/1/2007 at 19:25

You can still try but depending on the action (height of strings) it might be quite difficult to get a good (or any) sound to begin with.

In any case the note is a Bb - find it at fret 8 on the D string and do a slide (glissando, just slide up to it and either play it or don't - sometimes the slide alone will sound the note well enough), or a hammer on to it, or just play the note on the G string where it's written and ignore the "h".

theBlackman on 16/1/2007 at 01:50

Hammerons are also done with the string in play. Hit a note, then fret the same string elsewhere while it is playing. Very common technique in Country music.

And Pulloffs are done the same way on occassion. Pluck string, remove fretted finger, sound lower note.

PigLick on 16/1/2007 at 04:54

all good advice