Getting to know these positions is another one of those critical “building blocks” you need on the way to knowing all the correct “archetypes” of the guitar. First, we work on them in the open chord forms, and then see how they are as we use partial forms of them up the neck in closed forms.

This is also one of those great aspects of playing that is just as applicable and important to the lead player or rhythm player, and is at the root of countless licks that exist in the hammer-on form, which then can turn into bends or slides, so it’s a very important “starting point” for much of what we go on to play and improvise with on the guitar.

These are usually whole-step, or 2-fret hammer-ons, but in the case of the E form chord, we will see that it’s the more bluesy, half-step or one-fret hammer-on that prevails. When we move that up to closed positions, we can then make the choice between half-step or whole-step versions when in the E-form major third hammer-on mode. —Arlen Roth