Advanced Tapping Guitar (Two-handed tapping) - Guitar video lessons

Two-handed tapping can be utilized to play polyphonic 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.

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. As it produces a "clean tone" effect, and since the first note usually sounds the loudest (unwanted in some music like jazz), 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 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 luthier 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 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.

Stanley Jordan popularized this method on a six-string guitar, using an all 4ths tuning as previously on The Stick. He calls his approach "touch guitar," but it is essentially Chapman's Stick technique, though Jordan developed it independently, and at a later date.

Two-handed tapping is more rarely found in rock music than one-handed tapping, but has been used by rock guitarists such as Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Michael Angelo Batio, Steve Morse, Trey Azagthoth, Trevor Rabin, Buckethead, and Steve Hackett.

Advanced Tapping Guitar (Two-handed tapping)


Advanced Tapping Guitar (Two-handed tapping) - Guitar video lessons