Two Handed Tapping

Tapping on a guitar (or bass) means tapping the fingers upon the fretboard strings to create notes. You need not pick nor pluck the strings. And generally this means two-handed tapping, which means using this tapping technique with both hands.

It can be used to play basslines with simultaneous rhythmic chords.

It can be used to play baroque music, and two-part songs as given in piano scores, and as exemplified in Bach's Two-Part Inventions.

Tapping can be used to play multinote music and music with counter-harmonies on a normal everyday guitar or upon one of the new specialty instruments created for two-handed tapping, and designed especially for this technique.

Two handed tapping is useful for playing right-handed melodies and left-handed harmony something like piano playing

A musician can employ both hands on the melody strings for playing melodies and improvising solos using lots of notes in a brief time, or alternately upon the bass strings for playing funky, funky bass lines. In some ways this feels very much like two-handed 'drumming' on the strings.

Basic two-handed tapping technique is quite simple. Plug in an electric guitar, your bass, or a specialty tapping instrument like the Chapman Stick. Turn up your amplifier. Tap a string to a fret. There you go -- you've just played a note. Naturally, learning this powerful method of playing music will take focus and practice. But, if you're using a sensible learning method, and you're using a tuning for the strings that you already know from your guitar and bass experience, your speed of learning can be surprisingly quick.

Tapping is sometimes called 'touchstyle,' or 'touch style,' because the action of sounding the note feels more like touching than thumping the string. This is done on an amplified instrument to make the notes audible. And because tapping can be done with both your hands, then both hands can be used at the same time, in a way it's like a piano player does.

Creating musical notes on your electric guitar using this method isn't at all difficult. And although learning to use it fully could fill a lifetime, actually, lots of great music can be be created fairly quickly, and this method of play is acclaimed as being a lot of fun by people who try the technique.

In cronological order, the primary touchstyle instruments designed for the two-handed tapping technique are --

* The Bunker Touch-Guitar, designed for the two-necked touchstyle method he developed in 1958, and presented in his method book "Touch Guitar."

* The Chapman Stick, developed by jazz gitarist Emmett Chapman, who experimented with modified guitars, and developed an upright-positioned instrument where the two hands approach the single neck from the two sides.

Although he had an unusual method of tuning the bass strings, this hand position opens the doors to vastly more fluid play and the use of the two hands in an identical manner.

* The Box Guitar

* The Koyabu Board

* The Solene

* The Warr Guitar

* The NS-Stick

* The Mobius Megatar

* More information about two-handed tapping

* Articles about two-handed tapping

* More information about the Chapman Stick

* Hear Chapman Stick and Megatar MP3 Recordings.

* Photo gallery of custom two handed tapping instruments made by Mobius Megatar

* Description of the easy two handed tapping method called "Easy Touch-Style Bassics"

* Get a free copy of the two handed tapping method book that reveals this easy-to-learn method.