On Playing Volcano

[Bristlecone]

Okay, so I'm pretty much a fledgling dabbler in guitar, and only started taking lessons three or so months ago - eventually, my teacher wanted me to pick a song to learn, so I gave him O and had him tab out Volcano. He enjoyed himself, hit the cymbal at the appropriate time. Anyway, I ended up with the basic pattern of four down-strokes, palm muting the first two, taking off the mute for the third, and then returning to it for the fourth, repeat until a chord change. All in all it sounds pretty Volcano-esque.

Save for the pesky hammer-ons.

Now, I believe he got down the chords, with Am, into G, into F, all barre chords, in the same place Damien plays them on the neck. The thing is, Damien doesn't seem to hold the chords the way I was taught to hold them, barring all the strings across and then fretting accordingly the strings below. He seems, from the numerous videos I've seen, to maybe bar four strings, and then perform the hammer-on with his pinky while his thumb either frets or mutes the low E-string.

Then hit G, and then he does another odd shape, or at least one I'm not familiar with, for F, doing the same routine with his thumb and performing the hammer-on I can't seem to place. Is this just Damien modifying the shape of the chord to suit the song? Would anyone care to clarify?

[Calum]

Yes, you're right. Damien plays the bass note with his thumb curling over the top of the fretboard (a technique that i have picked up; it's very useful). Then, i think, he leaves the B and e open, so....

For Am: (However he only plays the open strings occasionally, so you just have to feel the right time to play them. Also. although i'm not sure if Damien does this, i like to hammer on from 5th, to 7th frets on the G-string.)

 
          E---------5---------   played with thumb
          A---------7---------   3rd finger
          D---------7--------   4th finger
          G---------5--------    1st finger
          B---------0--------
          e---------0--------

For G:

          E---------3---------   played with thumb
          A---------5---------   3rd finger
          D---------5--------    4th finger
          G---------4--------    2nd finger
          B---------3--------    1st finger
          e---------0--------

For F: (do that hammer on G when the time is right.)

          E---------1---------   played with thumb
          A---------3---------   3rd finger
          D---------3--------    4th finger
          G--------0h2-------    2nd finger
          B---------1--------    1st finger
          e---------0--------

So that's basically how Damien plays the main theme, maybe not exactly but very close . I hope i helped, and also that all that made sense!

Good luck with a great song.

[Bristlecone]

Thank you so much! My guitar is pretty old, and I didn't have a hand in picking it out at the time, so the neck is for some reason rather wide, even for what I'm told are my longer fingers - the fretboard only goes up to twelve before the body cuts it off, so it's all in all a smaller guitar to handle...with a thicker neck. So that kind of makes playing the low E string a stretch, but I believe it's manageable. I think I have to work on my finger strength and coordination, too, 'cause the Am hammer-on barely makes a sound when I do it. I just need to practice.

Again, thank you very much, Calum. Not knowing how to play it right's been bothering me for ages.

[Calum]

No problem. Yeah, playing the root note with your thumb is tricky to begin with, but you certainly get used to it. However, doing the same thing on a guitar with a wide neck is always difficult; i can only play the F chord that i posted up there on my classical guitar, and well, i can play the others but no where near effectively.

Glad i could help.

[rockthesmurf]

With regards to the hammer on, with my picking/strumming style for quite a lot of songs I'd do a downwards strum for the original note, and then do an upwards strum to hit the hammer on; this makes it a lot easier to get a more pronounced sound for the hammered note. I found that after a while I found my hand just knew what strings roughly to be hitting on the up stroke so as to only hammer on the right notes. I guess it's kind of a 'cheap' way of playing, but I believe it's also the way quite a lot of people use, so sometimes comes in handy in emulating other people's sounds/techniques.

Steve
xo

[Bristlecone]

I was fooling around with what Calum showed me, just strumming it the way my teacher showed me, without the hammer-on, and it sounded pretty good, but I need to work on that hammer-on, nonetheless. Despite being sort of able to get barre chords to ring out, I think my fingers are still too weak to nail down the hammer-ons, pardon the pun. But thank you muchly for the tip. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the hammer-on comes after that up-stroke you mentioned, right?

I would study some video of Volcano now, but my computer is probably going to die soon, as it keeps freezing for two second intervals every now and again. Bothersome.