# Secrets to tapping?



## Sephael (May 25, 2011)

I've tried to start working on some tapping, but haven't been able to get a decent ring from the notes. Is there some fundamental technique that I'm overlooking? When I do hammer-ons I don't have the same problem.


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## Winspear (May 25, 2011)

Purely finger strength. Just keep trucking  Good firm sustained contact.
Learn on a bass if you can. My first try at tapping was writing a Jean Baudin style piece on my 6 string bass. My fingers hurt so much and it was hell, but after that tapping on a guitar was incredibly easy.


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## Sikthness (May 25, 2011)

Just keep at it. It wont be long before you build callouses on your right hand and your finger strength increases. Keep practicing and before you know it, the tapping will just *click* with you and you will start really making progress


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## Solodini (May 26, 2011)

Fluidity, as well. I find the more relaxed my hand is the better my tapping comes across. Try doing some fingerpicking when you're not tapping, so that you can build muscle and musicality in your right hand.


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## thynk (May 28, 2011)

Sephael said:


> I've tried to start working on some tapping, but haven't been able to get a decent ring from the notes. Is there some fundamental technique that I'm overlooking? When I do hammer-ons I don't have the same problem.



How long are your finger nails? Back in my Classical days, I had to have my right hand nails long and that made practicing anything even mildly tappy impossible. Also, I was at a master class/clinic thing with Rusty Cooley and pretty much asked him the same thing about getting more ring/sustain/definition while tapping (and I mentioned my Classical-ness and long right-hand nails). His response was: Stop playing Classical, cut your nails until they're ALMOST so short they bleed, then start practicing tapping things really slowly so that you hear every little detail and know that every note sounds good before speeding it up.
He also said that when tapping, you should pull your (RH) fingers away from the fretboard towards your face/palm, as opposed to towards the ground because your hand was built for your fingers to curl in towards your palm, so it's a more natural movement meaning you'll be able to do it faster with less movement from larger joints (but I tried that and it was miserable and WAYYY harder than what I had been doing, so I kinda disregarded it... oops )

And something that really helped me with my tapping was practicing with a metronome and a Completely clean tone with (relatively) flat EQ and absolutely no effects. It forces you to hear every single tiny thing that isn't perfect. And without any delay and reverb and stuff, it becomes extremely apparent against the metronome if your note durations aren't like, perfect. If you practice tapping like that for a while and get good at it, THEN turn on the Lead Tone-ness, everything will sound awesome.

Or at least, that's kinda how it was for me... **shrug**
Hope this helps man , pardon my longgg post


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## Tomo009 (May 28, 2011)

Tapping isn't all that difficult, at first it seems really awkward but just have an exercise for some different patterns and keep at it. After a little while you realise all of a sudden you can do it. Once you have it, it is the easiest way to play fast imo.


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## Ninetyfour (May 28, 2011)

I think it's just learning to use the right amount of strength, some may call it 'muscle memory'. I started out pretty slow myself, and I introduced myself to tapping thoroughly with the taps in Bloodmeat by Protest The Hero. 

Practising with a metronome also helps build up the fluidity you seek.


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## Mn3mic (May 28, 2011)

Agree with the post above.

I am not a guitar lead player, more of a rhythm guitar player and I always had a hard time with solos, but as far as tapping goes, it's simple once you get used to the pattern you are trying to play.

Just keep looping it all the time and you will be able to play tapping licks in a jiffy


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## Sephael (May 29, 2011)

thynk said:


> How long are your finger nails?


compulsively short and bitten to bleeding any time I have a more than a few seconds of waiting for anything. 

Been able to get something passable lately, but still it feels horrible.


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## TheBotquax (Jun 9, 2011)

Practice!Practice!Practice!

Just remember that with your right hand, you really need to pull off the note hard!

A really good tapping excersise is one of those one string van-halen arpeggios:

--(12)--5--8--(12)--5--8--(12)--5--8--(12)--5--8-- 
(where the 12th fret is tapped of course)

I'm sure you're already practicing those, but they definitely work. Also remember that with tapping, since every note is coming from your fretting fingers and your fretting fingers only, so you really need to attack the string with a vicious assault to get a good clear sound. Once you get the proper motions down (practice sllllooooooowwww at first), it only takes a very short while to get up to speed.


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## Spaceman_Spiff (Jun 9, 2011)

My advice is learn something that is not too complicated and utilizes many strings. Like Scale the Summit's tapping section in The Great Plains. take it VERY slowly and always use a metronome as its easy to speed up or slow down when learning something new. Other than that its just like everyone else said, put in some good practice time because that will be what strengthens your hand and fingers.


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## Dead Undead (Jun 10, 2011)

I cannot stress enough that you need to practice tapping with a metronome. That's where I found my (and most others') biggest weak point was the timing/tempo.


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## Ryan-ZenGtr- (Jun 10, 2011)

Things to think about not yet mentioned:

1. How can you tap when you need to hold a pick/plectrum?

2. How can you mute the strings when your right hand is in the air to tap?

Depending on your picking style you will favour a particular tapping finger. I found that it was easier to tap accurately with my first finger (thumb touching the side of the neck for support) which is great for overdubs. To hold the pick and tap, my 2nd finger is better for tapping... I learned to do it both ways and developed it...

My normal picking style is to hold the pick between the thumb and 2nd finger, with the 1st finger providing support .

With regards to muting, do what you can with your left hand and the palm of your right. Hairbands make good live noise gates, as do other things you can tie around your neck in the studio.

The tapping technique is press the string with the tapping hand, touch it and push down... When the note has lasted long enough, let go. You can vibrato with a tap... Look at this:

Stanley Jordan


The key to getting mileage out of tapping is to research all the cool guitarist who use it tastefully and STEAL ALL THEIR LICKS!!!!

MWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Jun 15, 2011)

Learn the tapping riff in "Skies of the Millenium Night" by Sikth. It'll be hard but it was the best thing i ever learned in terms of tapping so far.


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## Cabinet (Jun 18, 2011)

I think a point that isn't mentioned enough is sustaining the tapped note for a long enough time. When I tap I treat the tapped note as an individual note like a standard picked note (usually). An excellent exercise to start developing this sort of evenness is the tapping lick in CAFO by Animals as Leaders. That lick really takes a bit of work to get every note played in a fluid sequence.


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## mixmasta91 (Jun 21, 2011)

Make sure your left hand has the strength to perform legato cleanly. Then for your right hand tapping you can do left hand exercises with your left hand. For example, playing a scale sequence with your tapping hand. Another interesting way to work on your tapping strength is to hold your guitar backwards. So if you're a righty, play it upside down lefty style. You can only work on your fretting hand which should be the hand thats usually your tapping hand.


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## SirMyghin (Jun 21, 2011)

Don't neglect the possibility of tapping with ALL your fingers, lots of folks do the 1 finger tap, but multi-finger is where the magic is. I use M R P when playing guitar, as I hold my pick with thumb and index. When I play bass, I use all 4. You can hammer and pull off on the tapped notes then, so you can effectively do anything your left hand can exactly. 

My personal preference is to use well times hammer-on's from nowhere opposed to pull offs when tapping, but it is good to be able to do both. The hammer-ons give a greater consistancy of timbre.


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## Sephael (Jun 22, 2011)

mixmasta91 said:


> Another interesting way to work on your tapping strength is to hold your guitar backwards. So if you're a righty, play it upside down lefty style. You can only work on your fretting hand which should be the hand thats usually your tapping hand.


Already one upping that, my drinking buddy has a right hand guitar strung for left hand use. I take plenty of opportunities to use it both left and right handed (you know you know a scale when you can play it upside down).


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