Legato means connected. On the guitar this is fairly easy to attain with slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs. And to be thorough, all avenues should be explored, but this lesson will concentrate on a few areas where legato playing can be quickly assimilated. We will begin with an overall view of the major modes presented across the fret-board (the key of C).

Our first example will be hammer-ons and pull-offs. Here are some locations of whole-step patterns that are built-in the scale boxes. Notice the L-M-U on the 4th string. A sixteenth note pattern can be produced by playing the middle-note (m), then the upper note (u), then the middle note (m) then the lower note (L). The 1st finger plays the lower note, the middle finger plays the middle note and the 4th finger plays the upper note.

The example (in E flat) appears below in tab form. To hear it, click here.

This can be further embellished with a sliding note (in this case from a 1/2 step away). Here are some likely locations of this pattern's occurrence in the key of C.

This pattern is easiest to play with six notes, so the tabbed example shows sixteenth note triplets.To hear this example, click here.

Traid arpeggios can also played legato easily enough. Below is a diagram showing the C major arpeggios across three octaves. The root note is played with the middle finger.

This example plays the arpeggios descending. The 1st note is played with the 1st finger, which then slides to the 2nd note where the middle finger plays the root on the lower string. This is repeated across the other octaves. The fret-board diagram and tablature appears below. To hear this example, click here.

Below is a short example that utilizes these particular techniques. To hear the example, click here.