The higher you go up the neck, the easier bending becomes. Of course, bending a C natural (3rd fret) half-way/quarter tone to the neutral third/seventh (depending on the key) l is good for blues intonation. ? 1/2 step bends only get tough at 4th fret or lower and you may need 2 LH fingers to bend. This is where expression and individual voice come out in the music. Your teacher should be able to help also. Try different ways and see what you discover. There is not a fixed recipe or formula except to sound good. The bad news is there is no one right way to do this. The good news is there is no one right way to do this. On guitar you can bend the note up half a step or so and let it down though on mandolin that usually takes gorilla fingers. It is really cool sounding at least when he does it. On the Doc and Dawg version of Bluegrass Stomp there are places where Grismann does hammer ons, pull offs and slides as he tremolos. There again play around with it and see what fits. They can be started from a fixed note, from an indefinite note, from open, sliding then letting off to open, have hammer-ons or pull offs incorporated, switch fingers in the middle and probably a few I am forgetting. The Clarence White guitar book that Roland White wrote teaches at least half a dozen ways to slide as you go through the songs. Try these and other tricks and see what sounds best to you. Timing can be varied slightly as you speed up or slow down the pull part of the slur, you can bend the note as you push off, you can pull off then pick the second note, you can hit it harder or softer. My own opinion is that they can be done either as pull or push and one or the other might sound better depending on the situation. A very good banjo player friend told me once that pull offs should actually be push offs. Pull offs can be done in more than one way. You can play with different ways of doing the tied notes. This is a case where 'playing' music actually becomes play. Technique and style questions always need the example at issue. My experience is that nearly everything is specific, local, even if we can talk generally. In general, there is a lot of musical technique that is not 'general' but specific to the notes in question. I would still aim for the graceful speed over the slurs but a good exercise either way. To me, this exercise is really a bowing exercise, in which you would have practiced reversing the pattern each group, and trying for speed. Alternately, stay in first position and don't try too hard for the slurs from pinky. Work with your teacher to pick the notes on which to shift. I never try to pull of with pinky, but a half-step move, to use ring finger for the Bb 6th fret note is feasible. You may want to shift to strong fingers in the second line.

There is a way of 'almost' slurring, in which you try to pull off or hammer on but still pick lightly. The first three are going to be pull-off and the fourth one is hammer-on. There's probably something on the subject in the old Comando/Mandozine interview linked below.Д®xcellent scan, and I think we can answer yes, do try to play those slurs.

You can get far more specific than using the Cafe search function. Here's the way to search the Cafe Forum for multi-word phrases etc. Https ://Slides-hammer-ons-and-pull-offs-when-to-use-them I've posted on the subject innumerable times over the past 15 years on the subject. Two-handed tapping is also a slurring technique, as well a using a finger to pluck the string rather than the pick. to slur notes separate strings, the technique is a 'pick glide'. All those techniques, alone or in combination, can be used for multiple note slurs. And you can certainly use it more than an 'occasional' hammer-on, pull-off or slide. People that don't use slurring, opting instead for the (dreaded) 'every-note-with-a-pickstroke', aren't really in a position to say what the technique(s) add or doesn't add.ДЄs far as I'm concerned, it is what allows the music to breathe.

Slurs tabledit