What is 'Tapping'?

by Olli-Pekka Rinta-Koski

An explanation of two-handed tapping.

What's tapping? Tapping is a technique for playing fretted instruments. It's the action of touching strings so they start to vibrate when they come in contact with a fret. This is also possible on fretless instruments to some degree.

One way of describing the technique in more detail is to compare it to more conventional guitar playing. When playing a guitar, the fingers on the fretting hand push the strings against the frets and the other hand plucks, picks or strums the strings so that they start to vibrate. When tapping, both hands do what the fretting hand does - touch the strings against the fretboard. The energy of pushing down the strings makes them vibrate.



Tapping on an acoustic instrument is difficult, although not impossible. The energy transferred to the strings when tapping is not big, so the strings have to be struck quite hard in order for the body of an acoustic instrument to resonate. This is why tapping is for the most part specifically a technique for playing electric instruments. Pickups on an electric instrument can easily transform the vibrations of a tapped string into a signal that can then be amplified.

Dedicated tapping instruments started to appear in the beginning of the Seventies, and these days there is a great variety to choose from. Not only are there several brands, but also variables like the number of strings, string configuration, tuning, scale length, and a wide choice of pickups and other hardware make it possible for everyone to find an instrument especially suited to their approach to tapping.

Just as there are different tunings for the guitar (e.g. DADGAD), there are also several string configurations and tunings for tapping instruments. Perhaps the most common string configuration divides the fretboard in two halves, with a group of strings dedicated to bass and chords (the "bass side") and another dedicated to melody.and soloing (the "melody side" or the "treble side"). Of course, this division is by no means exclusive; both sides of the split fretboard can be used interchangeably, although as one side is tuned lower than the other, some things are more suitable for one of the sides.

In the most common configuration, the player's hands cross the fretboard so that the bass side on the right (as seen by the player) is played with the left hand, and the melody side on the right is played with the right hand. This approach is especially suited to a style of playing where both hands make excursions to the other side as well. Also, the strings on the bass side are set up in reverse order compared to a standard guitar, so that both sides have the heaviest strings in the middle of the fretboard. Still another difference from standard guitar tuning is that the bass side is tuned in fifths instead of fourths as on the melody side. The fifths tuning gives the possibility to use very wide chords with an open sound, chords that would be difficult if not impossible to play in a fourths tuning because of the wide stretches between the notes. There are two major variants of this tuning, one with ten and another with twelve strings.

All details of the configuration can be varied together or separately. Thus there are players who have uncrossed their hands, interchanging the two groups of strings, while keeping everything else the same. Many players have switched to a fourths tuning on the bass side as well, as this makes reading from sheet music easier since both hands have the same chord shapes and fingerings. Changing from one setup to another usually involves just moving the strings around and setting the intonation.

Contact Info: http://iki.fi/ola/tapping/

Posted: 08/28/02 at 20:00:00

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