wont TAPPING by Andy Aledort ere we are at the end of summer and it’s stil hot and youve got a fg coming up anid you want to freak everybody out. So what do you do? Fretboard "tapping," of course Tapping isthe art of using the index or midlle finger of your picking hand to hitor "tap" notes on the fretboard. Ever Since Eddie Van Halen's Eruption made Sversbody fall over and take notice, tap- ing has become the most popular (and Eometimes misused) recent innovation. Tapping enables you to play things that would otherwise be unattainable, create 3S Very legato (smooth! sound similar to a Keyboard or a hom and play pattems that are not only fast But. complex thythmieally and/or melodically. Below fra primer in tapping, intended to get the ball rolling and point you towards many’ hours of frenzied mania, ‘well begin with simply tapping @ single note on the G string, and pulling Sito the open string. See Staff 1, Hit the G string at the 7th fret with either your thdex or middle finger of your picking hand; hit just hard enough to make the pote sound clearly, Then push off, caus- the the open string toring. Most guitar ints push off downwards, with the finger going slighty in the direction of the Fhigher strings, You may rest your thum’ onthe op ofthe neck bythe low strings) orfloat yourhand above the neck which- ver is more comfortable, Repeat this pattem until i sounds smooth rhythm- Feally, with all the notes ringing clearly. in Staff’ 2, we are adding one note to the previous pattem, to be sounded ty the fret hand. Only the notes which Took like this: are to be sounded by tapping with the picking hand. Keep in mind that when tapping none of the notes are picked; they are all sounded by hammerons and pullofis involving both hands, This a triplet pattern, with three notes sounding for each beat; play this pattern for at least four bars. Then, play two bars of the Sta 1 riff and two bar ofthis rif, repeating the sequence a few times. Stal 2A is the same riff as Staff 2, 24 GUITAR, SEPTEMBER 1985 S aeeeseeee oe 7 pena ———— a but the tap doesn’t fall on the downbeat; start the riff by tapping and hear the ‘open G as the downbeat. ‘Tapping is often used in conjunc- tion with bending, as in the style of Larry Carlton. In Staff 3, the C note is bent up to D, and when you tap the 10th fret, a G note sounds, The second bar of this riff begins with hammering the 3rd finger of the fret hand on the Sth fret to sound the C. ‘Another nice innovation is to play a ‘sequence of notes, alternating the tapped. note only. See Staff 4. This riff is similarstat scoont) suit? Sines oh seta Tas sat (ont Feo Adoues Tope fo nw toone Neil Geraldo plays on Pat Benatar's Precious Time. In the second half of Staff 4, this riff has been expanded to sextu- plets (six notes per beat) involving the open string, The 1st note is sounded by placing the tapping finger on the 12th fret of the G string without sounding that note, and pushing off to sound the C note. Try running these two riffs to- gether. Staff 5 involves a pattern which is played once on every string, moving from the ist to the 6th string and back to the 4st. This pattern doesn't follow a partic- ularscale, but it sounds good and should give you insight into playing tapped pattems across all the strings, which is what Randy Rhoads does in his solo from Flying High Again (Staff 6). This pattern sounds two notes with the fret hand and one tapped note. When shift- ing from the Ist string (bar 1) to the 2nd string (bar 2), simply move the pattern up one fret. This happens four times, then four times again, outlining all the chords the same way harmonically. In Staff 7, we have a rhythmic group ing which Van Halen uses quite often: the quintuplet, or five notes per beat. ‘This alternating rif, based on G° (dimin- ished) and G, is very similar to riffs Eddie uses in his Jump and Beat It solos. In Staff 8, we have a riff which I call the “Van Halen Irish Jig," which is in 3/ 4 time and reminds me of bagpipes. The term “A pedal” means to drone the A string throughout the rif to add to the “Celtic” feel. Staff 9 is an example of a riff which not only uses three different tapped notes, but follows no repeated pattern whatsoever, Also, the rhythm of the line moves freely from straight 32nds to 16th note triplets. (Thanks to GUITAR arran- ger Kenn Chipkin for this riff Staf 10 is an exercise in moving across the strings using three notes in the fret hand, Begin by sounding the 1st note with a silent tap/pull-off (as in Staff 4). The last note of each sextuplet is a tap on the adjacent string, kicking off the next sextuplet. You may bar the 1st finger of your fret hand across the top four strings at the 7th fret to achieve @ smoother sound, In Staff 11, we are tapping with both hands, as the fret hand moves down the neck and the picking hand taps the 12th fret repeatedly. This riff is based on E major and has a “classical” sound, rem- iniscent of Bach organ mu: Hopefully, by this point you will have a good grasp of what tapping is all about, and you will find the possibilities are endless. Try using the edge of the pick instead of your finger to get a sharper sound, as Frank Zappa does on Inca Roads from One Size Fits All, and con- tinue to experiment. SEPTEMBER 1985, GUITAR 25,