I understand the two-handed tapping technique a la EVH, and have spent some time practicing it. However, I just can't seem to get that clean, fluid sound right: I'm always touching other strings or somehow making a noise and I'm thinking there's some basic piece of the technique that I'm missing.
Anyone have any vids to link which give a good breakdown of how to get clean tapped lines and what to focus on during practice?
Hey Warren, i'm no guru at this and i haven't checked out youtube, but from what i know maybe you should look at having your left hand mute the remaining strings (This is much easier to show that explain :-[ ) while you tap and pull with your right hand.
Here's my take on it:
1. Plectrum between thumb & index. Middle, ring & pinky for tapping.
2. If it's 2 or 3 notes per string patterns on adjacent strings, i tap with middlea nd pull off to a note fretted by any of my LH fingers.
3. Move to the next string. Here, before my RH finger taps the note, my LH index mutes the previous string while any of the other LH fingers fret the note that comes after the tap.
4. Repeat.
I have never tried Finger tapping on an electric before, although I do have a couple of Acoustic songs where I tap mostly on the lower strings, I have that technique down, but after watching Govan, it's only 1 finger tapping with my Right hand.
Had a 45 Minute tap session and this is a bit more difficult than I thought, I have trained my first finger quite well, but the others are quite undisciplined. This will take some serious practice.
Tapping -> free piano lessons. Heh that was funny. "Hope this will helps you too!" All your tapping r belong to us!
On to more serious matters: I don't get this "tucking" the pick away that Govan (and Paul Gilbert, in another lesson I saw) talk about. Like Arjun says: thumb + index for pick. Other fingers free for tapping. No need to hide the pick anywhere. (Not that I should be saying anything if Govan and Gilbert are in the room :bow down smiley: )
Also, I think you can achieve a lot with ONE tapping finger. Paul Gilbert never uses more than one (I think?) Don't get hung up on fancy multi finger tapping, at least until the one finger is sorted out. Focus your practice hours on building coordination.
BMU wrote:
Tapping -> free piano lessons. Heh that was funny. "Hope this will helps you too!" All your tapping r belong to us!
On to more serious matters: I don't get this "tucking" the pick away that Govan (and Paul Gilbert, in another lesson I saw) talk about. Like Arjun says: thumb + index for pick. Other fingers free for tapping. No need to hide the pick anywhere. (Not that I should be saying anything if Govan and Gilbert are in the room :bow down smiley: )
Also, I think you can achieve a lot with ONE tapping finger. Paul Gilbert never uses more than one (I think?) Don't get hung up on fancy multi finger tapping, at least until the one finger is sorted out. Focus your practice hours on building coordination.
Yeah, I'm not about to try the fancy eight finger stuff. I just want to get one finger tapping correctly ah la Eddie. Good enough for what I play!
Hmmm... Michael Fath has an instructional book out on that stuff if you interested warren. He was a mean 80's/90's tapper... also went into 8 finger tapping.
If you want more... then perhaps get your hands on Jennifer Batten's book as well...
So, revisiting this whole story over the past week or so, report back:
Single biggest technique difference for me: resting the right arm / wrist across the unplayed strings to mute them. Because when I'm trying tapping I've got the volume and gain cranked high (making the guitar as touch sensitive as possible) I was picking up loads of handling / other noise.
So just practicing simple tapped patterns on the top two strings, I rest my arm against the other strings and suddenly the taps notes are ringing out nice and clear.
Now just to figure out how to switch to this sort of technique mid solo ?
Thanks for the tips guys, been really handy! Keep 'em coming.
Arjun Menon wrote:
Hey Warren, i'm no guru at this and i haven't checked out youtube, but from what i know maybe you should look at having your left hand mute the remaining strings (This is much easier to show that explain :-[ ) while you tap and pull with your right hand.
Here's my take on it:
1. Plectrum between thumb & index. Middle, ring & pinky for tapping.
2. If it's 2 or 3 notes per string patterns on adjacent strings, i tap with middlea nd pull off to a note fretted by any of my LH fingers.
3. Move to the next string. Here, before my RH finger taps the note, my LH index mutes the previous string while any of the other LH fingers fret the note that comes after the tap.
4. Repeat.
From my experience of having a Two handed Tapping friend... It takes a phenomenally long time. My friend, who is a serious guitar instructer, and has been teaching for over 15 years, with even more years of experience behind his name, says it took him 8 years to get where he is today at two handed tapping. Granted that he didn't practice to hard a few years ago, but now he practices very often, and from watching the results, they are very very good, but still far from Golden. If you ask me, personally it seems quite futile to practice something like that, when you still need to master your single hand.
But. If you still interested on learning... Jennifer Batten is a great user of 2 handed Tapping. Check some of her video's out to get a feel for it.
FruitarGeek wrote:
From my experience of having a Two handed Tapping friend... It takes a phenomenally long time. My friend, who is a serious guitar instructer, and has been teaching for over 15 years, with even more years of experience behind his name, says it took him 8 years to get where he is today at two handed tapping. Granted that he didn't practice to hard a few years ago, but now he practices very often, and from watching the results, they are very very good, but still far from Golden. If you ask me, personally it seems quite futile to practice something like that, when you still need to master your single hand.
Stratisfear wrote:
Fruitar, there's a forum member here called Guy Onraet, who has only been playing for the last fifteen minutes. And he can double-hand-tap like he's playing a keytar. So I'm siding with Chad on this one.
I can double hand tap. But it doesnt mean I'm good at it.
Stratisfear wrote:
Fruitar, there's a forum member here called Guy Onraet, who has only been playing for the last fifteen minutes. And he can double-hand-tap like he's playing a keytar. So I'm siding with Chad on this one.
I can double hand tap. But it doesnt mean I'm good at it.
Just cause you're not good at it doesn't make it futile ? Some of us are very into our Octodigital technique ?
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