Can anybody do this?

[Archie Macfarlane]

Can anyone play the intro riff bit to joker and the thief by wolfmother ONE HANDED ie: with just the left hand or fret hand?

 

[Cagey]

I'm not able to do it at the moment - my left hand is out of commission - but it sounds like triplets played by pulling off the first note and hammering the second and third, moving to the next string to do the same, then back to repeat it all again. A compressor and some finesse would probably come in handy, maybe even a gate.

 

[stratamania]

I had not heard the song before but looked it up on Youtube, but any reason you want to do it with one hand.

 

[Logrinn]

I hadn't heard it (or heard of it) either, but while listening to it I was able to do the riff with just my left hand. I just used hammer-ons. Instead of using open d- and g-strings I hammered the d- and g-note on the fifth and fourth strings.

 

[Archie Macfarlane]

I think i remembered Andrew Stockdale do it in a live clip once but i might be misremembering. I can play it the normal way but thought this would be a good challenge

 

[stratamania]

I tried it also in the way Logrinn described, but also tried a method where I used the third finger of my left hand to pluck the open string above the 7th fret then hammer to the 5th fret with the 1st and then to the 7th fret with the third.

My conclusion is, for what it is and how I saw the original being played live, is that you would be far better to just do it in a more conventional manner.  Even if you pull it off (pun intended) just with the fretting hand it doesn't have the same sound.

 

[Logrinn]

Even if you pull it off (pun intended) just with the fretting hand it doesn't have the same sound.

Exactly this ^