If you have heard players like Joe Satriani or Alan Holdsworth, then you have witnessed truly breathtaking legato technique (better known as hammer-os and pull-offs). Having good legato technique will help balance out your picking technique. When you want that aggressive, in-your-face sound, then stick to your picking technique, but if you want to play smooth, and fluidly, then legato technique is what you want.

My ears have a radar when it comes to great sounding techniques. I'll never forget when I heard a certain riff to Joe Satriani's The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing. The riff occurs at 1:32. It had such a smooth sound and it wasn't obvious to me how he was executing the riff. I later learned that he played the part entirely with the frethand, hammering on across strings while reaching behind with his pick hand to muffle the strings. This expanded my view of legato (i.e. hammer ons and pull offs) and is a technique that I sometimes use in my own music.

In my song Worlds In A Blade Of Grass (you can hear it in my playlist), I use this legato technique in a riff leading up to the outro section.

Above is the tab for this riff. I am not exatly a tabbing master, and so while the notes are pretty much note for note, the timing does not correspond to the recording. In any case, this exercise is not meant to be a note-for-note playback of a riff - the point to take away is that this particular legato technique can be used in a variety of ways to come up with great sounding riffs in your own music.

Later,

Brian