Tapping
Encyclopedia
Tapping is a guitar playing technique
Guitar picking
Guitar picking is a collection of techniques for setting a string into motion to produce an audible note; that is, plucking or strumming the strings on a guitar. Picking can be done:-* With a plectrum held in the hand...

, where a string is fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion of being pushed onto the fretboard, as opposed to the standard technique being fretted with one hand and picked with the other. It is similar to the technique of hammer-on
Hammer-on
Hammer-on is a stringed instrument playing technique performed by sharply bringing a fretting-hand finger down on the fingerboard behind a fret, causing a note to sound. This technique is the opposite of the pull-off...

s and pull-off
Pull-off
A pull-off is a stringed instrument technique performed by plucking a string by "pulling" the string off the fingerboard with one of the fingers being used to fret the note.-Performance and effect:...

s, but used in an extended way compared to them: hammer-ons would be performed by only the fretting hand, and in conjunction with conventionally picked notes; whereas tapping passages involve both hands and consist of only tapped, hammered and pulled notes. Tapping is used exclusively by some players (such as Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan is an American jazz/jazz fusion guitarist and pianist, best known for his development of the tapping technique for the guitar....

) and on some instruments , such as the Chapman Stick
Chapman Stick
The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and has been used on music recordings to play bass lines, melody lines, chords or textures...

).

Description

Tapping may be performed either one-handed or two-handed. It is an extended technique
Extended technique
Extended techniques are performance techniques used in music to describe unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional techniques of singing, or of playing musical instruments to obtain unusual sounds or instrumental timbres....

, executed by using one hand to 'tap' the strings against the fingerboard
Fingerboard
The fingerboard is a part of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument and above which the strings run...

, thus producing legato
Legato
In musical notation the Italian word legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, in transitioning from note to note, there should be no intervening silence...

 notes. Tapping usually incorporates pull-off
Pull-off
A pull-off is a stringed instrument technique performed by plucking a string by "pulling" the string off the fingerboard with one of the fingers being used to fret the note.-Performance and effect:...

s or hammer-on
Hammer-on
Hammer-on is a stringed instrument playing technique performed by sharply bringing a fretting-hand finger down on the fingerboard behind a fret, causing a note to sound. This technique is the opposite of the pull-off...

s as well, where 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
Fret
A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...

 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. It is often used on electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

 but may be performed on almost any string instrument
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

.

The Chapman Stick
Chapman Stick
The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and has been used on music recordings to play bass lines, melody lines, chords or textures...

 is an instrument built primarily for tapping, and is based on the Free Hands
Free Hands
Free Hands is the name of Emmett Chapman's two-handed tapping method of parallel hands used on his Chapman Stick instrument, and on several other Stick-inspired instruments...

two-handed tapping method invented in 1969 by Emmett Chapman where each hand approaches the fretboard with the fingers aligned parallel to the frets. The Hamatar, Mobius Megatar
Megatar
The Megatar is a stringed musical instrument designed to be played with two-handed tapping. It is manufactured by the U.S. company 'Mobius Megatar'.-Description :...

, Box Guitar, and Solene instruments are other instruments designed for the same method. The Bunker Touch-Guitar, developed by Dave Bunker in 1958, is designed for the two-necked tapping technique, but with an elbow rest to hold the right arm in the conventional guitar position. The NS/Stick
NS/Stick
The NS/Stick is an 8 string tapping instrument designed by Emmett Chapman and Ned Steinberger. It incorporates design ideas from both the original Stick and from Ned Steinberger's instruments such as the Stick's tapping fretboard and the Steinberger Bass' knee bar and headless design...

 and Warr Guitars are also built for tapping, though not exclusively. The harpejji
Harpejji
The harpejji is an electric stringed musical instrument developed in 2007 by Tim Meeks, founder of Marcodi Musical Products, and is a descendant of the StarrBoard. The instrument aims to bridge the gap in sound and technique between the guitar and the piano...

 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 lower string tension and low action
Action (music)
The term action, used in connection with stringed instruments, has two meanings, depending on whether the instrument is played with a keyboard or plucked by hand.-In keyboard instruments:...

 to increase the string's sensitivity to lighter tapping.

Some guitarists may choose to tap using the sharp edge of their pick
Plectrum
A plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick, and is a separate tool held in the player's hand...

 instead of fingers to produce a faster, more rigid flurry of notes closer to that of trilling, with a technique known as pick tapping
Pick tapping
Pick tapping is a legato playing technique for the guitar, in which the edge of the pick is used to sharply trill notes on the instrument's fretboard at a fast tempo. Whilst trilling can be performed with the fingers of either the fretting or picking hand, using the pick enables faster speeds by...

.

History

Tapping has existed in some form or another for centuries. Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò Paganini was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was one of the most celebrated violin virtuosi of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique...

 utilized similar techniques on the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

. A similar technique, called selpe, is used in Turkish folk music on the instrument called the bağlama
Baglama
thumb|180px|Cura and bağlamaThe bağlama is a stringed musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia....

. 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
Clavichord
The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was widely used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces...

 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
Clavinet
A Clavinet is an electrically amplified keyboard instrument manufactured by the Hohner company. It is essentially an electronically amplified clavichord, analogous to an electric guitar. Its distinctive bright staccato sound has appeared particularly in funk, disco, rock, and reggae songs.Various...

, in 1968.

Roy Smeck
Roy Smeck
Roy Smeck was an American musician. His skill on the banjo, guitar, steel guitar, and especially the ukulele earned him the nickname "Wizard of the Strings."-Background:...

 used the two-handed tapping technique on a Ukulele
Ukulele
The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....

 in the 1932 film Club House Party. Jimmie Webster made recordings in the 1950s using the method of two-handed tapping he described in 'Touch Method for Electric and Amplified Spanish Guitar', published in 1952. Webster was a student of electric pickup designer Harry DeArmond
Harry DeArmond
Harry DeArmond invented the first commercially available attachable guitar pickup in the mid 1930s. He established a working relationship with Horace 'Bud' Rowe's company to manufacture and develop these items...

, who developed two-handed tapping as a way to demonstrate the sensitivity of his pickups. The two-handed tapping technique was also known and occasionally used by many 1950s and 1960s jazz guitarists such as Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...

, who was an early supporter of Emmett Chapman
Emmett Chapman
Emmett Chapman is a jazz musician best known as the inventor of the Chapman Stick and maker of Chapman Stick family of instruments.Originally a guitarist, Chapman began recording and performing beginning in the late 1960s...

.

In August 1969, Los Angeles jazz guitarist Emmett Chapman discovered 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 for the first time. Chapman redesigned his 9-string long-scale electric guitar, calling it the Electric Stick. In 1974 he founded Stick Enterprises, Inc. and began building instruments for other musicians. With over 5000 instruments produced as of 2006, The Chapman Stick is the most popular extant dedicated tapping instrument. Chapman influenced several two-handed tapping guitarists, including Steve Lynch of the band Autograph, and Jennifer Batten
Jennifer Batten
Jennifer Batten is an American guitarist, who has worked as both a session musician and solo artist. She has released three studio albums: her 1992 debut, Above Below and Beyond, was produced by former Stevie Wonder guitarist Michael Sembello. In 1997, she released the worldbeat-influenced Jennifer...

.

One of the first rock guitarists to record using the two-handed tapping technique was Steve Hackett
Steve Hackett
Stephen Richard Hackett is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. He gained prominence as a member of the British progressive rock group Genesis, which he joined in 1970 and left in 1977 to pursue a solo career...

 from Genesis
Genesis (band)
Genesis are an English rock band that formed in 1967. The band currently comprises the longest-tenured members Tony Banks , Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins . Past members Peter Gabriel , Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips , also played major roles in the band in its early years...

. Two examples of Hackett's complex Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

 like tapping can be heard on the song "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight
Dancing with the Moonlit Knight
"Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" is the first track on the Genesis album Selling England by the Pound, released in 1973.The a cappella voice of Peter Gabriel opens the track. Then, the song progressively gets louder and more upbeat, becoming a powerful rock number...

", from 1973, and "The Return of the Giant Hogweed", from 1971.

Harvey Mandel
Canned Heat
Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...

 utilized extensive two-handed tapping techniques on his 1973 album Shangrenade. Ritchie Blackmore
Ritchie Blackmore
Richard Hugh "Ritchie" Blackmore is an English guitarist and songwriter, who was known as one of the first guitarists to fuse Classical music elements with rock. He fronted his own band Rainbow after leaving Deep Purple where he was unhappy because his favourite musical style wasn't adequately...

 has said that he saw Harvey Mandel utilize two-handed fretboard tapping as early as 1968 at the Whisky a Go Go
Whisky a Go Go
The Whisky a Go Go is a nightclub in West Hollywood, California, United States. It is located at 8901 Sunset Boulevard, on the Sunset Strip.-History:...

.
Randy Resnick
Randy Resnick
Randy Resnick , is a guitarist who has played with many blues and jazz luminaries, such as Don "Sugarcane" Harris, John Lee Hooker, John Klemmer, John Mayall and Freddie King. He published a CD of his own music in 1995.-Career:...

 of the Pure Food and Drug Act
Pure Food and Drug Act (band)
Pure Food and Drug Act was a band that was formed in the early 1970s by Don "Sugarcane" Harris. The band began with Paul Lagos on drums, Larry Taylor on bass and Randy Resnick on guitar...

 used two-handed tapping techniques extensively in his performances and recordings between 1969 and 1974. Resnick was mentioned in the Eddie Van Halen biography for his contribution to the two-handed tapping technique. Lee Ritenour
Lee Ritenour
Lee Mack Ritenour is an American jazz guitarist who has recorded over 42 albums, appeared on over 3000 sessions, and has charted over 30 instrumental and vocal contemporary jazz hits since 1976. One of his most popular songs was the smash hit, “Is It You” in 1981. Ritenour is considered to be a...

 mentioned in Guitar Player Magazine January 1980 that in reference to Randy playing with Richard Greene And Zone at the Whisky a Go-Go in 1974. Resnick also recorded using the two-handed tapping technique in 1974 on the John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers are a pioneering English blues band, led by singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist John Mayall, OBE. Mayall used the band name between 1963 and 1967, but then dropped it for some fifteen years. However, in 1982 a 'Return of the Bluesbreakers' was announced and...

 album "Latest Edition" and has said that he was attempting to duplicate the legato of John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...

's "Sheets of Sound".

Various other guitarists such as Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...

, Billy Gibbons
Billy Gibbons
William Frederick "Billy" Gibbons is an American musician, actor and car customizer, best known as the guitarist of the Texas blues-rock band ZZ Top. He is also the lead singer and composer for many of the band's songs. Gibbons is known for playing his Gretsch Billy Bo guitar and his famous 1959...

 from ZZ Top
ZZ Top
ZZ Top is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "That Little Ol' Band from Texas". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based boogie rock, has come to incorporate elements of arena, southern, and boogie rock. The band, from Houston Texas, formed in 1969...

, Brian May
Brian May
Brian Harold May, CBE is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen...

 from Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...

, Duane Allman
Duane Allman
Howard Duane Allman was an American guitarist, session musician and the primary co-founder of the southern rock group The Allman Brothers Band...

 from The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band is an American rock/blues band once based in Macon, Georgia. The band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman and Gregg Allman , who were supported by Dickey Betts , Berry Oakley , Butch Trucks , and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe"...

, Larry Carlton
Larry Carlton
Larry Carlton is an American jazz, smooth jazz, jazz fusion, pop, and rock guitarist and singer. He has divided his recording time between solo recordings and session appearances with various well-known bands...

 (Kid Charlemagne
Kid Charlemagne
"Kid Charlemagne" is a song by the rock group Steely Dan, which was released as a single from their 1976 album The Royal Scam. It is notable as a fusion of a funk rhythm and jazz harmonies with rock and roll instrumentals and lyrical style, as well as a very famous guitar solo by jazz-fusion...

 1976), and Leslie West
Leslie West
Leslie West is an American rock guitarist, singer and songwriter.-Biography:Originally named Leslie Weinstein, West was born in New York City, grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, and in East Meadow, Forest Hills and Lawrence. After his parents divorced, he changed his surname to West...

 from Mountain
Mountain (band)
Mountain is an American hard rock band that formed in Long Island, New York in 1969. Originally comprising vocalist and guitarist Leslie West, bassist Felix Pappalardi and drummer N. D. Smart, the band broke up in 1972 before reuniting in 1974 and remaining active until today...

 were using the two-handed tapping technique in the early and mid 1970s as well. Ace Frehley
Ace Frehley
Paul Daniel "Ace" Frehley is an American musician best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Kiss. He took on the persona of the "Spaceman" or "Space Ace" when the band adopted costumes and theatrics...

 and Frank Zappa used a guitar pick for their style of two-handed tapping.

Eddie Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen
Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halen is a Dutch-American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead guitarist and co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...

 helped popularize the two-handed tapping technique for the modern audience and influenced many guitarists to start utilizing two-handed tapping techniques. His explanation is that he was inspired to use two-handed tapping after hearing the fluid left-hand only pull-offs in Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...

's guitar solo for "Heartbreaker
Heartbreaker (Led Zeppelin song)
"Heartbreaker" is a song from English rock band Led Zeppelin's 1969 album, Led Zeppelin II. It was credited to all four members of the band, having been recorded at A&R Studios, New York, during the band's second concert tour of the United States, and was engineered by Eddie Kramer."Heartbreaker"...

", and expanded this technique by adding his right hand finger(s) out of necessity in reaching higher notes.

George Lynch
George Lynch (musician)
George Lynch is a hard rock/heavy metal guitarist best known as a member of the band Dokken, his own bands Lynch Mob and Souls of We.-Pre Dokken:...

 has said in an interview that he and Eddie Van Halen saw Harvey Mandel utilize two-handed tapping techniques at the Starwood Club
Starwood Club
The Starwood Night Club was a popular club in West Hollywood, California from early in 1972 to late 1981. Many punk bands and heavy metal bands started their careers playing at the Starwood....

 in the 1970s. From a March 2009 Metal Den George Lynch interview,
Perhaps the most well-known employment of two-handed tapping is "Eruption
Eruption (song)
"Eruption" is a guitar solo written and performed by Eddie Van Halen. Eruption often appears on many 'greatest guitar solos' lists. It is often played together with "You Really Got Me", which follows the song on the album Van Halen....

" on the first Van Halen
Van Halen
Van Halen is an American hard rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. The band has enjoyed success since the release of its debut album, Van Halen, . As of 2007 Van Halen has sold 80 million albums worldwide and has had the most #1 hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart...

 album. Released in 1978, it featured very fast two-handed tapping triads
Triad (music)
In music and music theory, a triad is a three-note chord that can be stacked in thirds. Its members, when actually stacked in thirds, from lowest pitched tone to highest, are called:* the Root...

 and formed the blueprint for heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 lead guitar playing throughout the 1980s.

During the 1980s two-handed tapping developed much further with many players such as Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan is an American jazz/jazz fusion guitarist and pianist, best known for his development of the tapping technique for the guitar....

 and Enver Izmaylov
Enver Izmaylov
Enver İzmaylov is a prominent Crimean Tatar folk and jazz musician resident of Ukraine. Born into a family previously deported from Crimea , İzmaylov returned in 1989....

 using a 2 or more finger tapping technique.

Wes Borland
Wes Borland
Wesley Louden Borland is an American musician and artist, best known as the guitarist for the band Limp Bizkit. He has been in several other bands as well including: Black Light Burns, The Damning Well, Goatslayer, Big Dumb Face, and Combichrist...

 of the rap metal
Rap metal
Rap metal is a subgenre of rap rock which fuses vocal and instrumental elements of hip hop music with heavy metal.-History:Rap metal originated from rap rock, a genre fusing vocal and instrumental elements of hip hop with rock...

 group, Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 1995, the group's lineup consists of Fred Durst , Wes Borland , Sam Rivers , John Otto and DJ Lethal . The band achieved mainstream success with their second studio album Significant Other, released in 1999...

, used two tapping as more of a riff rather than a solo, as demonstrated in the songs, "Sour", and "Re-Arranged
Re-Arranged
"Re-Arranged" is a song by nu metal band Limp Bizkit from their second studio album, Significant Other. It was released as the band's second single from the album and was the band's only #1 single on the Modern Rock chart, as well as the first nu metal song to reach number one on that chart.The...

".

Two-handed tapping on the bass guitar was not as popular as the guitar, but in some cases was done before Eddie Van Halen popularized the technique. Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....

, Billy Sheehan
Billy Sheehan
William "Billy" Sheehan is an American bassist known for his work with Talas, Steve Vai, David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, and Niacin. Sheehan has won the "Best Rock Bass Player" readers' poll from Guitar Player Magazine five times for his "lead bass" playing style...

, Victor Wooten
Victor Wooten
Victor Lemonte Wooten is an American bass player, composer, author, and producer, and has been the recipient of five Grammy Awards....

, Stuart Hamm
Stuart Hamm
Stuart "Stu" Hamm is an American bass guitar player, known for his session and live work with numerous artists as well for his unconventional playing style and solo recordings.-Beginning career:...

, John Myung
John Myung
John Ro Myung is an American bassist, Chapman Stick player and a founding member of the progressive metal group Dream Theater. He is considered a virtuoso player who is widely recognized for his technical proficiency....

, Les Claypool
Les Claypool
Leslie Edward "Les" Claypool is an American musician and writer, best known as the lead vocalist and bassist in the band Primus. Claypool's playing style on the electric bass mixes tapping, flamenco-like strumming, whammy bar bends and slapping.Claypool has also self produced and engineered his...

, Cliff Burton
Cliff Burton
Clifford Lee "Cliff" Burton was an American musician, best known as the bass guitarist for the American heavy metal band Metallica....

, Alex Webster
Alex Webster
Alex Webster is an American bass player, who is best known as a member of the American death metal band Cannibal Corpse. He is one of two current members who were of the original lineup of Cannibal Corpse, the other being drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz...

, Sean Beasley and Arif Mirabdolbaghi used two-handed tapping techniques on the bass guitar.

One-handed tapping

One-handed tapping, performed in conjunction with normal fingering by the fretting hand, facilitates the construction of note intervals
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...

 that would otherwise be impossible using one hand alone. It is often used as a special effect during a shredding
Shred guitar
Shred guitar or shredding is lead electric guitar playing that relies heavily on fast guitar solos. While some critics argue that shred guitar is associated with "... sweep-picked arpeggios, diminished and harmonic minor scales, finger-tapping and ... whammy-bar abuse", several guitar...

 solo
Guitar solo
In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...

. With the electric guitar, in this situation the output tone itself is usually overdriven
Distortion (guitar)
Distortion effects create "warm", "dirty" and "fuzzy" sounds by compressing the peaks of a musical instrument's sound wave and adding overtones. The three principal types of distortion effects are overdrive, distortion and fuzz. Distortion effects are sometimes called “gain” effects, as distorted...

 — 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 actual passages that can be played using this one-handed technique are virtually limitless. The note intervals between both hands can be shifted up or down the neck, or onto different strings, to form familiar scalar patterns, or even 'outside' tones by randomly streaming through any chosen notes for mere show (often by using chromatics
Chromatic scale
The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...

 or otherwise dissonant
Consonance and dissonance
In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...

 intervals).

As far as the actual technique goes, there are many ways of performing a one-handed tapping passage. The most common technique involves rapidly repeated triplets
Tuplet
In music a tuplet is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat into a different number of equal subdivisions from that usually permitted by the...

 played at a rate of sixteenth note
Sixteenth note
thumb|right|Figure 1. A sixteenth note with stem facing up, a sixteenth note with stem facing down, and a sixteenth rest.thumb|right|Figure 2. Four sixteenth notes beamed together....

s, 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. Overall, this could be considered an extended trill. The overall aim is to maintain fluidity and synchronization between all the notes, especially when played at speed, which can take some practice to master.

Alternatively, different sequences can be used. One common variation is to reverse the action of the left hand and instead add the second left-hand note as a hammer-on at the end: Tap — pull-off — hammer-on

The above variation can be heard to good effect on the famous guitar solo, "Eruption", in which Eddie Van Halen uses the above tap–pull–hammer method to create a lengthy cascade of tapped notes. In addition to the aforementioned triplets, tapping can be played using sixteenth notes (four notes to one beat
Beat (music)
The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...

 as opposed to three), or even — though rarely heard — quintuplets (five notes to one beat). This, especially the latter, can result in even more complex-sounding passages, with some guitarists choosing to use it as a form of neo-classical
Neo-classical metal
Neo-classical metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music that is heavily influenced by classical music. It refers to a very technical performanceExact quote from the french text: "L'arrivée du néoclassique remet au goût du jour la virtuosité et le travail de l'instrument", « Les secrets du metal-...

 phrasing to further deepen the musical possibilities of the technique. Again, there are a number of ways of doing so, but some examples of sixteenth-note tapping could be broken down as:

If looked at in scalar terms, the above sequences would follow the intervallic forms of a minor scale
Minor scale
A minor scale in Western music theory includes any scale that contains, in its tonic triad, at least three essential scale degrees: 1) the tonic , 2) a minor-third, or an interval of a minor third above the tonic, and 3) a perfect-fifth, or an interval of a perfect fifth above the tonic, altogether...

 and a blues scale
Pentatonic scale
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave in contrast to a heptatonic scale such as the major scale and minor scale...

 respectively. The same concept can therefore be applied to virtually any scale imaginable, making tapping a very diverse technique with constant room for experimentation.

Two-handed tapping

Two-handed tapping can be utilized to play polyphonic
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....

 and counterpoint music on a guitar by using eight (and even nine) fingers. For example, the right hand plays the treble melody while the left hand plays an accompaniment. Therefore, it is possible to produce music written for a keyboard instrument, such as J.S. Bach's Two-part Inventions
Inventions and Sinfonias (J. S. Bach)
The Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772–801, also known as the Two and Three Part Inventions, are a collection of thirty short keyboard compositions composed by Johann Sebastian Bach , consisting of fifteen inventions and fifteen sinfonias...

.

The method increases the flexibility of the instrument, in that it makes it possible to play more types of music on a guitar. The main disadvantage is the lack of change of timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

. As it produces a "clean tone" effect, and since the first note usually sounds the loudest (unwanted in some music like jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

), dynamics are a main concern with this technique, though Stanley Jordan and many Stick players are successful tappers in this genre. It is common to use a compressor
Audio level compression
Dynamic range compression, also called DRC or simply compression reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or "compressing" an audio signal's dynamic range...

 effect to make notes more similar in volume.

Depending on the orientation of the player's right hand, this method can produce varying degrees of success. Early experimenters with this idea like Harry DeArmond, his student Jimmie Webster, and Dave Bunker held their right hand in a conventional orientation, with the fingers lined up parallel with the strings. This limits the kind of musical lines the right hand can play.

Emmett Chapman was the first acknowledged to tap on guitar with his right hand fingers lined up parallel to the frets, as on the left hand, but from the opposite side of the neck (see photo). His discovery, in August 1969, led to complete counterpoint capability and a new instrument, the Chapman Stick, and to a new method Chapman called "Free Hands" method.

Eddie Van Halen popularized this method on a six-string guitar, with his song "Eruption" off the album Van Halen
Van Halen (album)
Van Halen is the debut studio album by American rock band Van Halen, released in February 1978.- History :Recorded in 1977, Van Halen sold over 10 million copies in the US alone, becoming one of the most successful debuts by a rock band. Along with 1984, it gives Van Halen two original albums with...

. He created a following trend of tapping guitarists like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai.

Randy Resnick posted a video on Youtube to demonstrate "Two-handed tapping"
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