Tapping

Tapping is an extended technique, executed by using either hand to 'tap' the strings against the fingerboard, thus producing legato notes. Tapping generally incorporates pull-offs or hammer-ons. For example, a right-handed guitarist might press down abruptly ("hammer") onto fret twelve with the index finger of the right hand and, in the motion of removing that finger, pluck ("pull") the same string already fretted at the eighth fret by the little finger of their 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.

While tapping is most commonly observed on electric guitar, it may apply to almost any string instrument, and several instruments have been created specifically to use the method. The Bunker Touch-Guitar (developed by Dave Bunker in 1958) is designed for the technique, but with an elbow rest to hold the right arm in the conventional guitar position. The Chapman Stick (developed in the early 1970s by Emmett Chapman) is an instrument designed primarily for tapping, and is based on the Free Hands two-handed tapping method invented by Chapman in 1969 where each hand approaches the fretboard with the fingers aligned parallel to the frets. The Hamatar, Mobius Megatar, Box Guitar, and Solene instruments were designed for the same method. The NS/Stick and Warr Guitar are also built for tapping, though not exclusively. The harpejji is a tapping instrument which is played on a stand, like a keyboard, with fingers typically parallel to the strings rather than perpendicular. All of these instruments use string tensions less than a standard guitar, and low action to increase the strings' sensitivity to lighter tapping.

Some guitarists may choose to tap using the sharp edge of their pick instead of fingers to produce a faster, more rigid flurry of notes closer to that of trilling, with a technique known as pick tapping. Guitarists such as Joe Satriani and John 5 Lowery have been known to use it, with Lowery nicknaming it a "Spider-Tap".

Niccolò Paganini, the 19th century violin master, one of the first innovators of musical instrument tapping.

Jazz guitarist Roy Smeck, seen in the 1926 short film His Pastimes, was an early popularizer of tapping.

Tapping has existed in some form or another for centuries. Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) used similar techniques on the violin, striking the string with a bouncing bow articulated by left-hand pizzicato. Paganini considered himself a better guitarist than violinist, and in fact wrote several compositions for guitar, most famously the "Grand Sonata for Violin and Guitar." His guitar compositions are rarely performed in modern times, though his violin compositions enjoy multiple performances. Some musicologists believe he wrote his 37 violin sonatas on guitar and then transcribed them for violin. Well known to frequent taverns, Paganini was likely exposed to gypsy guitar techniques from Romani, "gypsies." He preferred playing his guitar for tavern customers instead of concert hall audiences.[1]

Similar to two-hand tapping, selpe technique is used in Turkish folk music on the instrument called the bağlama.[2]

Tapping techniques and solos on various stringed acoustic instruments such as the banjo have been documented in film, records, and performances throughout the early 20th century. Various musicians have been suggested as the originators of modern two-hand tapping. While one of the earliest players known to use the technique was Roy Smeck (who used a tapping style on a ukulele in the 1932 film Club House Party), electric pickup designer Harry DeArmond developed a two-handed method as a way of demonstrating the sensitivity of his pickups. His friend Jimmie Webster, a designer and demonstrator for Gretsch guitars, made recordings in the 1950s using DeArmond's technique, which he described in the instructional book Touch Method for Electric and Amplified Spanish Guitar, published in 1952.

Enver Izmailov, a strictly tapping Ukrainian folk and jazz guitar player in 2009.

Stanley Jordan, a jazz guitarist, in 2017 relies extensively on tapping.

Vittorio Camardese developed his own two-handed tapping in the early 1960s, and demonstrated it in 1965 during an Italian television show.[3]

Tapping was occasionally employed by many 1950s and 1960s jazz guitarists such as Barney Kessel, who was an early supporter of Emmett Chapman.

In August 1969, Chapman developed a new way of two-handed tapping with both hands held perpendicular to the neck from opposite sides, thus enabling equal counterpoint capabilities for each hand. To maximize the technique, Chapman designed a 9-string long-scale electric guitar which he called "the Electric Stick" (and later refined as the Chapman Stick), the most popular dedicated tapping instrument. Chapman's style aligns the right-hand fingers parallel to the frets, as on the left hand, but from the opposite side of the neck. His discovery led to complete counterpoint capability, and a new instrument, the Chapman Stick, and to his "Free Hands" method. Chapman influenced several tapping guitarists, including Steve Lynch of Autograph, and Jennifer Batten.

The tapping technique began to be taken up by rock and blues guitarists in the late 1960s. One of the earliest such players was Canned Heat guitarist Harvey Mandel, whom Ritchie Blackmore claims to have seen using tapping onstage as early as 1968 at the Whisky a Go Go.[4] George Lynch has corroborated this, mentioning that both he and Eddie Van Halen saw Mandel employ "a neo-classic tapping thing" at the Starwood in West Hollywood during the 1970s.[5] Mandel would use extensive two-handed tapping techniques on his 1973 album Shangrenade. Another early example of the tapping technique can be heard in Terry Kath's "Free Form Guitar" from Chicago's debut album in 1969.

Greg Howe using a hair tie on the first fret to mute the open strings while tapping with two hands

Randy Resnick (of the band Pure Food and Drug Act, which at one time also featured Mandel) used two-handed tapping techniques extensively in his performances and recordings between 1969 and 1974. Resnick was mentioned in the Eddie Van Halen biography[6] for his contribution to the two-handed tapping technique. In reference to Resnick's playing with Richard Greene And Zone at the Whisky a Go-Go in 1974, Lee Ritenour mentioned in Guitar Player magazine January 1980 that "Randy was the first guitarist I ever saw who based his whole style on tapping." Resnick also recorded using the technique in 1974 on the John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers album Latest Edition and has said that he was attempting to duplicate the legato of John Coltrane's "Sheets of Sound".

Steve Hackett of Genesis also claims to be an inventor of tapping as early as 1971.[7][8]

Some players such as Stanley Jordan, Paul Gilbert, Buckethead, and Steve Vai were notably skilled in the use of both hands in an almost piano-like attack on the fretboard.

In the mid 1970s two-handed tapping started to break into the mainstream, when Frank Zappa started incorporating it into his songs, and performing them to large TV audiences. Eddie Van Halen went on to popularize the two-handed tapping technique in the late 1970s. Van Halen claims that his own inspiration came from Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page: "I think I got the idea of tapping watching (Page) do his "Heartbreaker" solo back in 1971… He was doing a pull-off to an open string and I thought… I can do that, but what if I use my finger as the nut and move it around?"[9]

• Steve Hackett
• Megatar
• Niccolò Paganini
• Billy McLaughlin
• Jorge Pescara
• Enver İzmaylov
• Eddie Van Halen
• Reb Beach

• Basic info about Tapping Instruments in Spanish & English