An additional $90 bonus is provided for the first ten Early-Bird subscribers, but you can read the full details on the site. There are some other bonus gifts for everybody who subscribes. Kind of hard not to win on this kind of deal.

Here’s an excerpt from The Adventures of Bloggard, announcing the site …

“… the Touchstyle Club, strange visitor from another planet, who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal man; and who, disguised as Kent Clark, mild-mannikin at the Daily Bungle, a grape necropolitan snoozepaper …

“As you can see, things are going downhill fast here at the on-site news center. That’s because the Bloggard stayed up way late last night, and then woke up early with yet another set of bonus stuff for musicians wanting to save perhaps Hundreds of Dollars- But, see for yourself …

“Take a quick peek, and you’ll see why I’m hyper-excited. Be sure to read the entire page from top to bottom, and let me know what you think, you good little boys and- I mean, you good musicians, you.

“Here it is –

“The Holiday Cheer Touchstyle Club.”

[The Holiday Cheer Touchstyle Club is brought to you by Mobius Megatar.]

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Two handed tapping is sometimes called ‘touchstyle,’ or ‘touch style,’ because the action of sounding the note feels more like touching than thumping the string. This is done on an amplified instrument to make the notes audible. Because it can be done with both hands, both hands can be used at the same time, like a piano player in a way.

It can be used to play polyphonic and counterpoint music on a guitar or one of the several specialty instruments designed especially for this technique. It can be used to play left-hand chords and right hand melodies much like ‘cocktail piano.’

It can be used to play basslines with simultaneous rhythmic chords. It can be used to play baroque music, and two-part songs as given in piano scores, and as exemplified in Bach’s Two-Part Inventions. And that’s not all …

You can use both hands on high-pitched strings to create solos and melodies with extremely rapid flurries of notes, or on low-pitched strings to create quick and funky bass parts. In some ways it feels much like two-handed ‘drumming’ on the strings.

Producing a sound on an electric guitar this way is quite easy. And although learning to use it fully could fill a lifetime, in actual fact, many wonderful forms of musical expression can be developed fairly quickly, and the practice is almost universally reported to be hugely fun by musicians who try it.

STANDARD GUITAR, OR SPECIALTY INSTRUMENT?

With the correct setup, two handed tapping can be effectively used on any electric guitar or electric bass.

Alternately, several manufacturers of specialty instruments exist. Generally, these specialty instruments provide a greater number of strings, so that the two hands do not need to squabble over a given string, and to extend the range of the instrument. Because if you can play with two hands like a piano player, then you can with the same effort play very low and very high, as a piano player do.

In addition, these specialty instruments have designs optimized for the technique, and are often easier to play, allow your hands a greater range of motion, and rest in a more comfortable playing position.

If using an electric guitar or bass, the key factor is correct positioning and correct instrument set-up.

LOW ACTION

Improper adjustment of a guitar can lead you to think that it doesn’t work. Tapping pioneer Stanley Jordan says, “The most important single factor is low action; the strings should practically touch the frets. This is absolutely crucial for ease of playing, clarity, and sustain.

“If you have tried tapping with normal action, you probably heard a weak, dull tone, because a large portion of the attack was the sound of the finger hitting the string. But with low action, a very light tap unites string and fret immediately, giving you a crisp tone.

“How low must you set your action ? Extremely low! If the distance between a string and the 12th fret is greater than the thickness of a penny, it is probably too high. After you become more proficient with tapping, you may decide to bring your action back up a bit for a fuller sound. But for now, get it as low as possible.”

STRING DAMPER

Some sort of dampener will be needed near the nut to prevent open strings from ringing. As you play notes further up the neck and release the notes, the open string is extremely likely to sound. The note it’s sounding may or may not be in the key of your song, and in most cases that extra note will not be a benefit!

You can use a strip of felt woven over and under the strings between the nut and first fret. Other materials that musicians have tried include velcro, fuzzy-dice material, leather and suede, old socks, or strips cut from old bluejeans..

FINGER ACTION

Stanley Jordan describes the basic finger action as “tap and hold. Your finger comes straight down and taps the string against the fret, holding it there for as long as you want the note to last. To cut off the note, lightly pull your finger straight off the string with as little side-to-side motion as possible. This movement must be very light. You barely even try to release your finger; mainly relax it, and let the string push it back up.”

When first practicing, try to play very slowly and play legato. When you can play legato slowly, then play a little faster. By the time you have learned to play legato with even tone and sound, you will be able to articulate the notes however you wish.

TUNING

Many musicians have experimented with many kinds of tuning. But without going crazy, most guitarists will find it easiest too start with standard tuning, so that they are using the notes they already know.

However, it is well worth the experiment to try tuning in straight fourths. On a guitar from low to high that would be E A D G C F. The two smallest strings are raised a half-step higher than usual. Therefore any pair of strings is exactly a fourth apart. This simplifies and makes clear the entire fretboard, and makes it more logical. This makes playing with both hands simpler and easier, and so your speed of learning is increased.

HAND POSITION

Most musicians will find it easiest on a normal guitar to keep the thumbs riding along the edge of the fretboard. This anchors them and makes your playing more precise, but it also strengthens your hand and fingers, and feels more comfortable, so you can play relaxed without having to hold your arm rigid. All these improve your playing and comfort level.

On a guitar, normally you would touch the strings with your fingertips, not the pads, and in the beginning will help you to avoid hitting adjacent strings. Your fingers should be naturally curved while playing.

However, on a specialty touchstyle instrument, usually the neck is wider and accomodates more strings. This also allows an alternate hand position, because your thumbs can slide behind the neck, which still gives them a stable-feeling anchor, increases strength and comfort, and improves finger accuracy. But in this position it may work best to play with finger flats.

Well-designed specialty instruments generally provide you with a slightly wider string spacing than does a normal guitar, and playing without hitting adjacent strings is fairly easy after just a few days. This allows you to have greater touch sensitivity.

You will generally get the best tone when you touch the string right *at* the fret. And when playing with finger flats, even if you don’t think about it, your fingers can actually feel the fret beneath the string, and so you have constant and ongoing feedback in your body as to your positioning. Even if you never think of this consciously, your accuracy will improve as a side-effect of the ongoing feedback.

SPECIALTY INSTRUMENTS

A number of instruments have been designed to extend the two-handed touchstyle method, to make it easier, or to make it more powerful.

Although an early pioneer named Jimmie Webster patented some guitar modifications, such as a split-output pickup, the basic guitar design remained the same.

The first known modified instrument is the Bunker Touch-Guitar, designed for the two-necked touchstyle method he developed in 1958, and presented in his method book “Touch Guitar.”

At a later time, Los Angeles guitarist Emmett Chapman began to experiment with modified guitars, and deveoped an upright-positioned instrument where the two hands approach the single neck from the two sides.

Although he had an unusual method of tuning the bass strings, this hand position opens the doors to vastly more fluid play and the use of the two hands in an identical manner. The instrument, whose design he patented, is called the Chapman Stick (R).

Subsequent instruments using various designs include the Box Guitar, the Mobius Megatar, the Solene, the Koyabu Board, the NS-Stick and the Warr Guitar.

All of these instruments have a longer neck, a larger number of strings, lower string tension and low action to increase the string’s sensitivity to light tapping, and are generally positioned in a nearly upright position, which allows both hands easiest access to the fretboard.

HISTORY

It’s unclear who discovered tapping, but it was certainly popularized, though not discovered, by Eddie van Halen. Van Halen was listening to “Heartbreaker” by Led Zeppelin, and he was quite inspired by the solo, which contained a variation of tapping. This is arguably the song that pushed Van Halen to popularize and use “tapping” frequently.

Many years earlier, the first musician to play this way was pickup designer Harry DeArmond in the 1940′s. He used tapping as a way to demonstrate the sensitivity of the pickups he made. He still held the guitar in the conventional orientation, and the right hand with that alignment does not move as fluidly as the left hand.

However, it appears that his method was seen by guitarist Jimmie Webster, who wrote an instruction book called “The Touch System for Amplified Spanish guitar” and published it in 1952.

He made a record called “Webster Unabridged” and was a great wonder, but it did not really catch on. The technique is a little difficult, compared to techniques on specialty instruments, because either each hand must be content with onlyl three strings, or one hand must coordinate and steal notes from the other hand. It’s kind of a finger-juggling act!

In 1969 Emmett Chapman discovered that he could tap on the strings with both hands, and that by raising the neck up could align the right hand’s fingers with the frets as on the left, but from both sides of the fretbard. This made scale-based melody lines just as easy to tap in the right hand as the left, and this approach to playing a stringed instrument has taken hold, and is the preferred method for nearly all specialty-instrument musicians today.

Chapman began selling his new instrument (The Chapman Stick) to others in 1974, as he began travelling around to music stores and demonstrating this new technque and new instrument, and in 1976 he published the lessons he used for teaching, as a book called “Free Hands.”

Stanley Jordan, who released a number of successful albums on Blue Note records, became quite well known in the 1980s for using a similar method on guitar, and was featured in the Bruce Willis movie “Blind Date.”

—

An expanded “History of Touch-Style” can be found on the Mobius Megatar website with a special section on two-handed tapping, and a special section on the pioneering innovations of Emmett Chapman and the Chapman Stick. Many additional articles about two-handed tapping and the Chapman Stick can be found online.

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Experimentation is your friend. Here are some possibilities –

RECEIVING BROADCAST HUM

There is something in the environment which is “broadcasting” RFI in the room where your equipment is located. Common sources of Radio Frequency Interference include motors (vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, and automobile distributors), and transformers (high-intensity lamps, fluorescent lights), and from big magnets like speaker coils or television sets. The sound from autos are likely to vary in frequency. The sound from lamps and lights and refrigerators are likely to be be consistent, and at 60 cycles per second, which is what we normally call ‘hum.’

The RFI can be picked up either by strings (antennas) or by pickups (coils) as the signal is induced into the circuit created by the guitar and its parts, or into the cord (usually not possible if cord is properly shielded on both the guitar and the amp end), or into the amp, and then …

The RFI is then *not* filtered by the humbucking pickups. Normal hum *is* filtered by humbucking pickups. In our shop, when we build the Mobius Megatar Tapping Basses, we do our lab work two feet under a fluorescent light, just to ‘hear’ if there is a problem, and this hum is normally filtered out.

So the best way I know to get an idea that strong RFI in the environment is some part of the culprit is to get the hum going, and then change the orientation of the instrument. If you hear hum while the instrument is flat on the table, but not when it’s upright, or if you hear hum while the instrument is upright facing east but not when it’s facing north, then probably there is a strong RFI source in your environment. Remember that it may be behind a wall or a ceiling or floor. Wood and sheetrock is no barrier to Radio Waves.

If the instrument seems the same in all orientations, then consider the cord and the amp. Try moving them to a different room or part of the room.

TOUCHING METAL

Sometimes you will hear hum, and then you touch the strings with your hand and the hum vanishes. Or you touch the (metal) tone/volume knobs, and the hum goes away. I’ve been told this has something to do with the ‘capacitance’ of the human body, and I think that means that the body soaks up alternating signals. But that’s too vague. It doesn’t get us anywhere. I suspect this is a meaningful clue; I just don’t know what it means.

A GROUND LOOP

Hum can be caused by something called a ‘ground loop.’

We can think of an electrical power plug as have a left and a right prong, or we can think of a signal having a signal and a ground wire. If you’re not using two amps then the question of their having the same side (left or right) as the ‘ground’ should not be an issue, though it is *possible* that an input jack on your mixer *might* be reversed from the others ones *if* repair work was ever done on the mixer.

Likewise, if some of the inputs on the mixer are for ‘line level’ like synths, and others are specifically built for magnetic inputs like guitar, or others are specifically for mikes (and either with or without phantom power) then it is possible that all inputs are not equal. Sometimes there are switches associated with the inputs.

HUM SPECIFIC TO TAPPING GUITARS AND BASSES

On specialty tapping instruments, like the Chapman Stick, Warr Guitar, and Mobius Megatar, usually two outputs are provided. One for the bass pickup(s) and one for the melody pickup(s).

In Mobius Megatar and other instruments that I’ve seen, the bass and the melody have the same ground.

Normally, the ground is common throughout the guitar — The pickups cavity is grounded all around, the pots and pickups and outjack are all grounded to the same place. Even the strings are grounded to the same place. Therefore, the stereo cord goes into two mono cords, and the two mono plugs — one for bass, and the other for melody strings — have the same ground.

On Chapman Stick or a Mobius Megatar tapping bass, these output mono jacks, have signal on the metal tip, and ground on the metal sleeve of the jack, and it’s the same ground all the way back to the pickups and guitar components and the shielded cavity.

Therefore, unless one uses a mutant and miswired stereo cable, the sleeves of the two mono jacks should both be ground. A voltmeter connecting the two sleeves should show zero resistance.

HUM COMING FROM MIXER OR AMP WITH TWO MONO CABLES

But if a hum is coming from any mixer or amp when two common-ground mono cables are plugged into two inputs, it might be suggested that there is either (a) a 60-cycle induced hum that has been induced across the two signal tips; or (b) that the signal/ground is reversed on one of the mixer/amp signal paths relative to each other.

This article is not capable of analyzing or diagnosing the device you are using, but a fast way to find out if that’s the source of trouble is — carry your Megatar or Chapman Stick to Guitar Center. plug it into a bass amp, and plug it into a Guitar amp, and play it. No hum? Then there is nothing wrong with the guitar or the cable.

Get them to stop the kid playing Stairway to Heaven with his amp set to eleven while you do this test.

ELECTRICAL OUTLETS AT YOUR HOUSE OR ON THE GIG

The electrical outlets in the wall are ‘spozed to have proper grounding. However … maybe they don’t. Even if they have three prongs, maybe somebody just stuck those part on the wall and maybe that third, grounding wire isn’t connected up to an actual ground.

If you have more than one amp or effects, best to plug them all into the same outlet. Or carry your own multi-outlet strip.

An easy way to create a ground loop in the power is to have two devices that have two prong plugs. Plug one in rightways and the other one reversed. Just about nearly always you’ll hear hum, and with the right equipment you can shock yourself seriously. Not even a joke.

Plugs these days are ‘spozed to have one fat prong and one thin one, so they cannot be reversed, but it doesn’t always work. And remember … some human may have wired up that plug. Oops.

SINGLE COIL PICKUPS

Single-coil pickups are part of a radio-receiver circuit. Remember the coil of wire you made when you built a crystal radio in cub scouts? Signals can be induced into coils rather easily. They are natural ‘receivers.’ Any source of RFI is likely to sound through single-coil pickups. Darn.

Specialty touchstyle basses like the Chapman Stick, Warr Guitar, and Mobius Megatar, designed for two handed tapping, will usually have the instrument’s gain turned higher than a standard guitar, because we’re just tapping gently on the string instead of strumming like all get out.

Turning the gain up increases the signal, but also boosts the background noise, including hum, as well, so dealing with hum may require a bit more attention, if you want a quiet sound.

SORRY INSTRUMENT DESIGN

Cheap instruments, in some cases imported strat knockoffs, sometimes do things so sloppily that they do not have any shielding around the electronics. The cavity around the electronics and pickups should have a solid conductive material all around these components. It’s called a ‘Faraday Cage’ after Michael Faraday I suppose, and it keeps those nasty vibes from annoying the components.

I have heard, but don’t know whether it is true, that the basic Fender Stratocaster design has ground-loop errors in the basic design. I am dubious. Not Leo! But for certain, a guitar maker could make a blunder, I suppose. If it’s on one guitar but not another, take it to a whiz guy.

SORRY CABLES

The teeny signal is running on a wire across (to the signal) a vast distance to get to the amp. Lots of signals in the air could disturb it, but it is ‘spozed to have a big fat woven wire all around it — again a Faraday Cage — protecting it from bad vibes. And this big fat woven wire would optimally be connected to ground on the tapping guitar, and to ground at the amp.

But is it?

A fancy name and expensive price tag may not be the best cable. However, again, a trip to Guitar Center with the noisy guitar and cable, and if you try some of their cables and the noise goes away … it’s a definite clue.

Hope this information is helpful.

All comments welcomed.

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