Guitar tapping is the process of performing rapid hammer-ons and pull-offs (slurs), with both your left and right hands. Learning to tap means that you can:
- Play triplet or quadruplet slurs in places across the fret board that would be impossible to reach with just your left hand
- Play slurs at a much higher beat count than you can with one hand
- Fret any note with your left index finger
- Pluck it with your right hand (with pick) and leave it to ring
- Use your middle, ring or pinky finger of your right hand to quickly and gracefully change to a new note further up the fret board.
Guitar Tapping Without A Pick In Hand
Alternatively, you can also do tapping without a pick in hand.
In more advanced lessons, you can also learn to perform 8-fingers guitar tapping.
Efficient Learning of Guitar Tapping
Once you've practiced hammering on and pulling off for a while, you'll notice that the two flow together. You can hammer on to a note, and immediately pull off back to the original one. This is the basis of tapping. When you hammer on and pull off to the same two notes, it is known musically as trilling.
To learn how to tap:
- Start off trilling two notes - for example, use the 5th and 8th frets on the B string. Do the trilling slowly, even if you've practiced enough to be quite quick.
- Once you have a rhythm going, use your right hand middle finger to hammer on to the 12th fret, after you've hammered onto the 8th.
- Pull off the 12th fret, and then continue to pull off the 8th fret as you would have.
- You've created a three-note trill - also known as tapping.
- Quadruplet trills are also possible. It is much easier to practice with three fingers of your left hand, and the middle finger of your right, rather than using two fingers on each hand.
