Two-Handed Tapping
Tapping on a guitar (or bass) means tapping the fingers against the strings on the fretboard to make sounds. No striking, picking, plucking, or strumming is employed. Usually this means two-handed tapping, meaning to use the technique with both hands.
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 …
Tapping on Bass – Six Strings? Eight Strings? Twelve Strings?
If you’re a bass player, I’d bet you’d agree that the power and precision of the bass is that it can play a single, low note.
You can play fast or slow, but learning bass technique initially is learning to play one note at a time. If you experiment with playing chords, you’ve learned that you must spread the notes out, because close-voiced notes sound muddy.
BASS PLAYERS BEGIN TAPPING ON BASS
With modern amplification, more and more bass-players are learning bass tapping – that is, just touching the strings to the frets, in order to sound a note. This touchstyle method allows playing the bass strings with both hands, because plucking is not needed.
And tapping on bass opens the door to chordal bass music, and to playing melodies. With two-handed tapping on bass you can be a better side-man, but you could also begin playing solo gigs, and it’s not all that difficult, with the Easy Touchstyle Method. At the end, I’ll tell you how to get a free bass-tapping method book that reveals how easy it can be.
Obviously, to play spread-out chords, and to play high-pitched melodies, you’re going to need more than a four-string bass, because you’re going to need more range.
The question is – how many strings make for easy learning to play bass tapping? And how many strings work best for melody playing?
Hello Two-Handed Tappers!
Welcome to the online repository of articles and lessons for two-handed tapping (also known as touchstyle technique).
This site has just been opened, so give us a few days to start posting tapping lessons and articles.
Come back soon!