Tapping = Death

[Apprentice]

Alright, while watching some guitar videos. I noticed that everyone was tapping with their fingers, and I usually tap with pick on its side. So, in a moment of granduer, I crank up the drive on my distortion pedal and start hammering my finger onto my shiny 8 (high "E" string) and then my finger gets cut open!!!

rofl, that sucked. I never knew my finger was that soft. Well, its not that bad, just a tiny little scratch. Anyways, I was wondering if I should stick with the pick tapping or start using my finger. Aside from looking bad a*, does it have any other benefits? The only other thing I can tell is that it looks like it would make switching from tapping to any other style much easier. Opinions?

note: Anyway to improve finger tapping, as to not have it kill my fragile little fingers?

[Weasel3000]

Sucks to have our fingers.

I guess you could tap for a while(nothing huge of course) and then stop. And then continue gradually.

[Zarathustra]

You need to build a callous (sp?) on your right hand fingertips if you're having a problem with them splitting open. Maybe take up a little fingerpicking? Then again, maybe it is just the climate you're playing in.

[UKRuss]

I've never heard of that before...are you sure it was the string rather than maybe a little sharp corner of the fretwire or something?

To be honest if your guitar is a shred machine with jumbo frets, you really shouldnt have to put that much pressure on the string with the tapping hand to get the notes, certainly not enough to cut yourself.

As to the finger vs pick for tapping I think each has an advantage and a disadvantage.

First the pick: This has the added advantage that you can slide the tapped note up and down easily by simply wiping the pick up or down the fretboard and it glides effortlessly over the frets to creat some interesting effects, is also means speed wise you don't have to move the grip on the pick very much. It also makes a nice sharp and clear contact which is very defined in the tapping progression.

Downside is perhaps a minor loss of speed in changing between the notes your tapping with the pick as you move it from one to the other, probably negligible.

Now the finger: ...or should I say fingers? Cos for me thats where the advantage lies in finger tapping, you can use more than one to tap at the same time be it alternatley on the same string or different strings!

Think about some of the crazy tapping runs you could come up with using all four fingers of the left hand hammering on and pulling off while embellishing with two (or more) of your fingers on the right hand as well.

The only downside I find is you have to get rid of the pick entirely, which means either quickly whipping it up into your mouth to hold in your teeth or simply throwing it away and grabbing another off your mike stand/guitar when you need to start picking again.

If I get some time, I'll try to post some examples of what I mean for each.

[Apprentice]

Well, its the first time I have EVER tapped with my middle finger and I just tried to do it as hard as I can so thats why it got alittle scratch. Anyways... Well I was trying to tap, it wasnt ringing out very clearly/loudly, is that because of my technique or will it always be like that?

Yeah, I've read about the 8 finger tapping things, that is insane! Im still trying to just play my major and minor scales in every key without messing up, much less pulling off some wicked 8 finger-tapping lick, but that would righteous if I could. Well, I guess it never hurt to learn a new style, if you post the examples you have for the different tapping licks Ill be sure to practice them until I can do it flawlessly.

thanks!

[UKRuss]

I'll have a go but my tabbing sucks so it might just be audio files to listen to, slow/fast kind of thing.

I'm not sure I can do much 8 finger stuff either to be fair!

I'll post what I can do and hope it helps.

[Rizla]

A few weeks of shoveling **** will soon harden your fingers. I do difficult work like that and my finger tips are as hard as steel. You must have really delicate fingers! I can tap fine even with my 4th finger and I've never cut myself playing! Go and spend a week digging a hole in your garden Tell you what really works well is if you dig a hole and then start pulling dirt out with your hands.

[Apprentice]

I need to do something, lol. Your rh 4th finger? Wtf? I can barely tap with my rh 2nd finger! Maybe I should go dig a hole with my bare hands.

Yeah, any tabs/exercises will help. Right now Im focusing on my picking and sweeps, but I can throw in a few tapping exercises to get my technqiue up.

Once again, thanks, its appreciated!

[mattblack850]

my shiny 8 (high "E" string) and then my finger gets cut open!!

No wonder, if you're gonna play using a garrot sized string then your fingers are bound to get cut up!!!! You should try a set of Dobro style top strings top 'e' 17, learn to tap with them and you'll build callouses like sand castles!!!!!!!!!


Seriously though, it will take a while to build the fingertips up, just remember that it took a while for the left hand fingertips when you started playing, well there's no difference in this case. RH fingerpicking on a steel strung acoustic will help.
As for the clarity of the notes, I would suggest a lower action on the strings, less pressure needed, less chance of slipping off the note. It will also be easier on your fingers (so that's a bonus!!!!)

[Apprentice]

lol. I tried 10's once, they killed my fingers. I use a custom gauge, 8, 11, 14, 26, 36, 46. Anyways, I never thought about tapping on acoustic, I'll do that for awhile and see if it helps me play them. Thanks for the info man!

[Rizla]

That is right about the action, the action on one of my guitars is really low and tapping sounds great on it, on another guitar the action is like 1/2 inch and it sounds like crap!

[GuitarLausing]

ok, my advice is try to tap something on the wound string; D, A, low E. That way you wont cut yourself and get some hard skin on your fingertips.

For the pick in mouth thing, I personally hold the pick as i use to and then tap with my middle finger. Never tried more than one finger tapping at the time, I'm really not into country so much yet.

hmm... Licks you say.
I got these from my guitar teacher a while ago.
The tab is just the three lowest string, you want need the other for this exercise. 'T' means tap.


...T........T.........
D----------------------|
A--14p7h10--14p7h10---:|
E----------------------|

repeat for a minute or so, take a break, then try it again, this time only faster

#2
when you're fed up with #1:

...T..........T............T..........T.......
D-------------14p7h9h10----12p5h7h9------------|
A--14p7h9h10--------------------------12p5h7h9:|
E----------------------------------------------|

build speed up slowly and stop if you experience direct pain (the muscles-getting-tired-kinda-pain is OK, i believe. I could be wrong)



My guitar teacher told me to hammer the tapping finger onto the string as powerful as I could. He said that you should be able the hear the tapping finger hit the strings (Clack!) if you turned the speaker down.

Try this out, I'm not guaranteeing that it works. Did for me though.

[UKRuss]

Country?!?!

whats that got to do with multiple finger tapping techniques?

[GuitarLausing]

A lot, theres some rock dudes and metal dudes that do it too. I've seen more country/blues players that do it.
But anyway.
Sorry for offending you if i did

[UKRuss]

No offence taken.

I just wondered where it came from as I kind of thought we were talking from a metal perspective.

I suppose it could be used for all sorts of style of course.