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Adding Hammer-Ons to Your Strumming
by Christopher Sung

Is this starting to make sense? In general, if the difference between the original played open string and the fret of the hammer-on is 2 frets apart, the hammer will sound good. You might want to try experimenting with hammering other fretted notes in these chords to see how they sound.

In the example below, we take our basic D chord and modify the F# that's played on the 1st string. When we strum the chord, the F# isn't there. It's replaced by the open E string, and we then hammer on at the 2nd fret. The last measure shows how it might sound in a real strumming pattern.

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