Rock Guitar Lesson 7 Two-Handed Tapping Two-handed tapping is a contemporary progressive method of guitar playing     that provides new possibilities and makes playing even very fast passages incredibly easy.

Performance:

The main principle of two-handed tapping (later just tapping) is the same as in hammer on

and pull off techniques from the 1^st lesson. The difference is that here we'll use fingers of

both hands to tap and pull off strings.

You can use any finger of the right hand to tap the string.

I usually use middle finger while thumb and forefinger hold the pick, so I can easily switch from

picking to tapping and back.

To understand the concept better first just tap and hold any string with the right hand finger

as I do on the video below. Do not tap on the metal frets, tap on the room between them.

Now let's play first very easy tapping lick:

“T” character in the tab represents tapping.

The circle around the number in the fingering area means that the note below is to be

played by a right hand finger.

1. right hand finger taps on 17^th fret

2. and perform pull off to 10^th fret (left hand 1^st finger already stays on the 10^th fret)

3. after this perform hammer on to the 12^th fret with the 3^rd finger of the left hand

after you get it, circle this sequence

watch video example

if to play this progression about 4 times on the 2^nd string and another 4 times on

the 3^rd, you'll get pretty cool lick.

It's played by triplets, 3 notes per beat.

When the idea of basic two-handed tapping is completely conceived move on and enjoy the following

tapping licks and exercises

Tapping Lick 1

Am         triplet rhythm

First time moving left hand along the fretboard can be a challenge.

When right hand finger taps the note the left hand has some time to switch the position.

Tapping Lick 1 video example

Tapping Lick 2

In this lick left hand stands all the time on the same position while right hand finger jumps along the fret

Am        triplet rhythm

Tapping Lick 2 video example

Tapping Lick 3

Em

Each time slowly increase your pace when you feel OK with your current speed.

Off course I meant reasonable speeds, playing too fast by the way very often doesn't sound as music

and does more likely as noise.

Tapping Lick 3 video example