Hammer Ons and Pull Offs – Thunderstruck

In this lesson we are going to be looking at the techniques required to play the main theme of Thunderstruck by ACDC.

This track has a great riff that uses a lot of pull offs. In the excerpt below you will see the TAB has a lot of “P” and “H” instructions. P standing for Pull off and H standing for Hammer on. For this melody you are applying you fretting hand fingers aggressively down (Hammering) to play the notes and pulling off (Slight pull down, rolling off the note again with the fretting hand) with the same finger to play the open strings.

Give this iconic tack a go! start slow and build up speed and when confident try it out to the track.

You can download a transcription of the lead guitar part here below.