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Tapping, Tapping

There are two main methods of tapping: one-handed or 'ordinary' tapping, and two-handed tapping. Tapping can generate immense speed in solo passages, particularly with arpeggios as the technique permits jumps to higher notes on the scale which would be unreachable by the fretting hand. It is an important technique in shred guitar which developed in the 1980s and is used by many of the top guitarists such as Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Michael Angelo Batio, John Petrucci and Paul Gilbert.

Hence, tapping usually incorporates pull-offs or hammer-ons as well, whereby the fingers of the left hand play a sequence of notes in synchronization with the tapping hand. For example, a right handed guitarist might hammer down on fret twelve with the index finger of the right hand and, in the motion of removing that finger, pluck the same string already fretted at the eighth fret by the little finger of his/her left hand. This finger would be removed in the same way, pulling off to the fifth fret. Thus the three notes (E, C and A) are played in quick succession at relative ease to the player.

The NS/Stick and Warr guitars are also built for tapping, though not exclusively.

Tapping techniques and solos on various stringed acoustic instruments such as the Banjo have been documented in early film, records, and performances throughout the early 20th century. The clavichord was an early acoustic keyboard instrument that used a mechanical hammer to "fret" a string for each key. It was followed by an amplified version, the Hohner Clavinet in 1968.

Two examples of Hackett's complex tapping can be heard on the song "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight", from 1973, and "The Return of the Giant Hogweed", from 1971. Harvey Mandel, well-known for his psychedelic guitar playing, also employed 2-handed fretboard tapping in the 1960s. Mandel was one of the first rock guitarists to utilize this technique, years before Eddie Van Halen and Stanley Jordan first appeared.

The technique would remain a part of Frehley's solos from 1977 through the Kiss reunion during "Shock Me".Various other guitarists such as Frank Zappa, Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, Brian May from Queen, Duane Allman [3] from the The Allman Brothers Band and Leslie West from Mountain were using the tapping technique in the early 1970s as well. Ace Frehley and Frank Zappa used a guitar pick for their style of tapping.

Perhaps the most well known employment of tapping is the short piece "Eruption" on the first Van Halen album which was released in 1978, which features very fast tapping triads and formed the blueprint for heavy metal lead playing throughout the 1980s.

For examples on bass tapping see Jaco Pastorius, Billy Sheehan, Victor Wooten, Stuart Hamm, John Myung, Cliff Burton of Metallica and Arif Mirabdolbaghi just to name a few.

With the electric guitar, in this situation the output tone itself is usually overdriven although it is possible to tap acoustically with drive serving as a boost to further amplify the non-picked (and thus naturally weaker) legato notes being played. Because of the amount of distortion generally present, the player should also focus on reducing unnecessary noise during tapping; for instance, by using the palm of the tapping hand to mute any open strings that might otherwise ring out.

The most common one involves rapidly repeated triplets played at a rate of sixteenth notes, using the following sequence: Tap pull-off pull-off In this case, the right hand index or middle finger sounds the first note on a string by sharply hammering onto it once, then pulling off (often with a slight, sideways 'flicking' movement so as to strengthen the note) to a lower note held by one of the left hand fingers, that of which is then finally pulled off to the last note held by another left hand finger. From there, the cycle is repeated. If one breaks that down even further, the very first part can be seen as the actual 'tapping' motion itself, whereas the second part involving the left hand acts as a way of embellishing the passage with additional notes; which, overall, could be considered an extended trill. The overall aim is to maintain fluidity and synchronisation between all the notes, especially when played at speed, which can take some practice to master.

Source: Wikipedia > Tapping