Learn Guitar Tapping Techniques

When playing guitar using normal hand positions for your fretting hand, you will notice that you are quite limited in note range, when voicing a particular chord, or arpeggio.

It is often quite difficult to play extra notes higher up the neck, without losing your hand position altogether. Relying just on fretted notes, limits your range and playing speed.

This is why guitar tapping techniques are essential to learn, to advance you from beginner to intermediate and beyond. Being able to accurately sound notes with either single- or double-handed tapping, will greatly increase the range of notes you can play at a given time, and the even the kind of music you play on a guitar.

Guitar tapping is an extension of playing notes with hammer-ons and pull-offs. While hammer-ons and pull-offs usually require the string to be played like normal at some point, guitar tapping techniques can be executed without the need to strum or strike the strings at all.

Passages of music with tapped notes, consist just of taps, hammer-ons and pull-offs. The tablature for tapping can seem intimidating, but it is actually a relatively easy guitar skill to learn if you start slowly and focus on your technique.

There are two main tapping techniques: single-handed and double-handed.

Single-Handed Tapping

This tapping technique involves the use of fingers from the strumming hand, to tap notes on the fretboard. This lets you extend your range far up the fretboard.

When used in conjunction with hammer-ons and pull-offs, you can execute very fast phrases. It is common for guitarists to use triplets for rapid tapping sequences. Single-hand tapping can be used for both acoustic and electric guitars. When playing tapped notes on an electric guitar, it is a good idea to boost the gain and play with full tone. This amplifies the tapped notes.

If you are playing tapped notes, you may notice that you encounter unwanted noise from strings around the tapped frets. It is a good idea to try and mute those strings, using either your right palm, or a finger on your left hand that is not being used for fretting.

Electric guitar players will sometimes play the tapped notes with the edge of the pick, rather than their fingertips. This creates a slightly louder note, and allows for faster, tighter note sequences. The sound quality is slightly harsher though, so the tapping technique you use is up to personal taste.

How to Play Guitar Tapping Techniques

Guitar tapping is the process of performing rapid hammer-ons and pull-offs (slurs), with both your left and right hands.

Learning to tap means that you can:

• Play triplet or quadruplet slurs in places across the fret board that would be impossible to reach with just your left hand
  
• Play slurs at a much higher beat count than you can with one hand 

To learn to tap, you will first need to learn to hammer on and pull off. Tapping is basically a series of hammer on-pull offs. To hammer on with your left hand:

• Fret any note with your left index finger
  
• Pluck it with your right hand (with pick) and leave it to ring
  
• Use your middle, ring or pinky finger of your right hand to quickly and gracefully change to a new note further up the fret board. 

While holding on to my pick with index finger and thumb, I perform guitar tapping using my other fingers.

Guitar Tapping Without A Pick In Hand

Alternatively, you can also do tapping without a pick in hand.

In more advanced lessons, you can also learn to perform 8-fingers guitar tapping

Training Up your Fingers For Guitar Tapping Exercises

Pull offs utilize the same technique as hammer ons, but are played down the fret board, instead of up. That is, they move from a higher to a lower note. To pull off with your left hand:

• Put your pinky, ring or middle finger on a note on the fret board
  
• Put your index finger on a note behind it on the same string
  
• Pull the higher finger away, making sure that you pull at the string a little as you do so to help create a sound. 

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Efficient Learning of Guitar Tapping

Once you've practiced hammering on and pulling off for a while, you'll notice that the two flow together. You can hammer on to a note, and immediately pull off back to the original one.

This is the basis of tapping. When you hammer on and pull off to the same two notes, it is known musically as trilling.

To learn how to tap:

• Start off trilling two notes - for example, use the 5th and 8th frets on the B string. Do the trilling slowly, even if you've practiced enough to be quite quick.
  
• Once you have a rhythm going, use your right hand middle finger to hammer on to the 12th fret, after you've hammered onto the 8th.
  
• Pull off the 12th fret, and then continue to pull off the 8th fret as you would have.
  
• You've created a three-note trill - also known as tapping.
  
• Quadruplet trills are also possible. It is much easier to practice with three fingers of your left hand, and the middle finger of your right, rather than using two fingers on each hand. 

Guitar Tapping Exercise

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Double-Handed Guitar Tapping

This technique involves using both hands to tap notes on the fretboard. The left hand is used in the normal manner for fretting, while the right is positioned opposite the left on the fretboard, parallel to the frets. The effect is quite dramatic, due to the change in note layout for the right hand. '

Guitarists using double-handed tapping are able to music that is normally reserved for pianos or keyboards, because they can accurately play eight or even nine separate notes, depending on their dexterity.

The effective note range is also increased. Double-handed tapping allows a guitarist to play two melodies, or a melody and accompaniment simultaneously, in the same way that a pianist can.

Tapping is a technique that has been used on various stringed instruments for a long time in musical history. For modern guitar playing, it is due to Emmet Chapman's poineering in double-handed tapping, that made the technique popular.

He discovered the technique of using two hands for tapping, by positioning them parallel to the frets. He even went as far as to invent the “Chapman Stick”. This instrument is a modified guitar, with a wide neck and up to 12 strings, designed purely with tapping in mind.

Good Songs for Practising Guitar Tapping

• Thunderstruck, AC/DC
  
• Crazy Train, Ozzy Osbourne
  
• Hot for Teacher, Van Halen
  
• Midnight, Joe Satriani
  
• Building the Church, Steve Vai 

That driving, ecstatic, climactic sound of properly executed tapping on a guitar has driven many a crowd to a screaming, writhing peak! Now, go practice this technique and someday, you might be the one on stage wowing the crowrds. Stay tuned for more guitar lessons by Guitar Player World.com. Cheers!

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