Backwoods Pull-Off Exercise (Key of C)

Video lesson

Editor’s notes

Hey friends! Here’s a quick exercise to help you practice your left-pinky pull-off technique. By pull-off, I’m referring to the opposite of a hammer-on… where a finger is forcefully pulled “off” of a fretted string, such that it sounds like the string is being plucked.

Specially, we’ll be doing these three transitions –– where the left pinky (highlighted) is initial positioned on the 3rd fret…

But then, after the pinky is pulled off, it’s the red note shown below that will sound out, as if it was plucked.

This is a great way to add flourish to any riff in a way that’s done entirely with the left hand. This riff in particular includes a few of the most common pull-off scenarios beginner guitarists will encounter.

Here’s a preview of the full PDF (attached at the bottom of this post):

Thanks to supporter Erik for sending in the song I based this lesson off of (Chillin in the Backwoods by Jawga Boys). While I didn’t know the song, this intro riff caught my ear at once –– and I knew it’d make for a good lesson showing this technique.

I’d eventually love to do some more focused lessons on the hammer-on and pull-off techniques with a very technical focus – but until then, I trust this exercise might be a good one to try out.

Thanks and until next time ✌️