Guitar Tapping Beginners

Wondering how to implement two handed guitar tapping? Read our beginners guide to guitar tapping and start two hand tapping in (just over) 5 minutes.

The guitar tapping technique, and especially the two handed guitar tapping technique has been used by famous guitarists like Eddie van Halen, Randy Rhoads and many more incredible guitarists. It's a cool guitar trick, and once you get it right, can add some really great dynamics and interesting sounds to your playing.

The two handed guitar tapping technique looks harder than it actually is. This is a fun and showy technique that you can learn and throw into your solos to give them some Eddie Van Halen style flair.

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We've teamed up with Leigh Fuge to show us a quick guide to easy guitar tapping technique. Watch the video and get tapping in 3 easy licks. But first a few FAQs.

Guitar tapping is not hard to learn, it's just a little challenging to master. In a nutshell, guitar tapping is easy enough to get the basics down. However, making it sound good is entirely up to you and depends on how much you practice. Just like any other aspect of guitar, it's as easy as the amount of time you put into it.

Yes! you absolutely can tap on an acoustic guitar. It won't sound as loud as an electric, but if you hit a bit harder and ideally use an eletro acoustic plugged into an amplifier you can make some incredible sounds by tapping on an acoustic guitar!

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Practice! Watching the right lessons and following the tapping technique closely is the best way to get the basics. We recommend practcing for 20 mins a day, every day (where possible) as this will help you nail the guitar tapping technique. Again, it's up to you how fast you learn guitar tapping as you get out what you put in!

Think of two hand tapping as an extended hammer on or pull off phrase, except you’re using both hands. It doesn’t have to be a big undertaking to learn this technique using the scale below.

We recommend checking out the video on the PMTVUK Youtube channel (above) for some insight in how to get started with the technique before you dive into the licks.

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This first guitar tapping lick is a great one to start with. With your picking hand, you are tapping the 12th fret of the B string. Before you do this, you should place your index finger on your fretting hand on the 5th fret ready.

Once you tap the 12th fret and lift that finger, you will notice it function as a pull off back to the 5th fret. Once you hear the 5th fret, with your fretting hand, hammer onto the 8th fret.

Repeat this for all four beats in the bar. In the second bar, move your tapping finger up to the 13th fret.

Easy Tapping Lick Using Legato And Open Strings

When you are tapping, you are using scale notes. This means you can use other notes in the scale too. You don’t have to stick to the form of the first lick. This phrase uses the same fretting hand notes on the 5th and 8th fret, but the tapped note is moved to the 10th fret from the second shape of the minor pentatonic.

If you’re feeling really adventurous, you can even tap a different note from multiple minor pentatonic scales across each beat like this.

This lick uses the same principles as the first but this time, instead of the fretting hand doing a hammer on, it’s doing a pull off instead. The only change here is that you have to position both fingers on the fretting hand ready for the pull off.

Impressive Guitar Tapping Solos (with Tab & Diagrams)

A great technique to grab some attention and to spice up your rock licks is a bend with a tap on the end.

Guitar

Bend the 7th fret of the G up a full step and tap the 12th fret. Apply lots of vibrato to really make it sing.

You can pick the note you bend with your plectrum and tap the higher note with your middle finger if that’s easier. Most rock players would probably approach it this way.

Guitar From Scratch

This will really make your rock licks stand out from the crowd. This two handed tapping technique is also a lot of fun to play!

Ready for another lesson? Hit Next to learn 7 of our favourite iconic Guitar Riffs that are fun to play, or go Back for more lessons on Harmonics and Solos.

This lesson was brought to you by MusicTeacher.com, written by experienced guitar teacher Leigh Fuge. Leigh works as part of a community of guitar teachers based across the UK and beyond. We work with many guitar teachers who are able to offer lessons online, tutoring students around the world. This includes the very popular Zoom Guitar Lessons that have seen hundreds of guitar students sign-up during lockdown, from complete beginners upwards, to develop their guitar playing ability.Beginner Guitar Tapping Lesson This lesson will look specifically at beginner guitar tapping and introduce you to the basic finger tapping technique. I've tried to make this as step-by-step and practical as possible, so you actually come away with a newsoloing skill you can really use!

Tapping In Harmony

Tapping involves using the tips of the fingers from your picking hand to hammer on and pull off strings in the same way you would using yourfret hand.

Once you get around to hammering using three fingers on your fret hand, and tapping using 1 or more fingers on your pick hand all in the same soloing phrase, you can create a very dynamic arpeggio effect which would otherwise be impossible to achieve with just the fret hand doing all the fretting work.

Beginner

Tapping is most commonly usedunder high gain/distortion. Acoustic/clean players do sometimes tap, but just be aware that guitar tapping without gain or distortion requires much more physical work on your hammer-ons and especially pull-offs.

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Most guitarists tap using their middle (2nd) finger (like in the video earlier), because if you're pickingusing a plectrum and need to quickly switch to a tapping phrase, your middle finger will be instantly available and you can still holdthe plectrum (between index finger and thumb) for when you go back to picking as normal.

If you've not tapped before, you'll need tobuild up callouses (tough skin) on your tapping fingers in the same way you did on your fret hand fingers when learning chords as a beginner. So it may hurt at first, but play through it! The more you practice, the sooner you'll grow that tough skin.

We'll just stick to the physical side of guitar tapping for now, rather than learning how to tap within a key or scale effectively. That'll come later.

Essential Guitar Tapping Exercises (with Tab)

Try the exercise below. Fret the string of choice using your natural fret hand. Now you can tap at a particular fret using your chosen pick hand finger.

Try to tap in the same fret space position as the dot in the diagram - just before the fret wire, exactly where you'd fret normally! Remember, it's no different than when you're fretting using your normal fret hand.

At first, if you're using a lot of distortion/gain, you might hear unwanted strings/notes ring out because of the force of the tapping causing the fretboard to vibrate. Unfortunately, unwanted noise is the biggest problem most guitarists have to deal with. The idea is, though, you'll be playing over other instruments when soloing, and that definitely helps in masking those unwanted noises you simply cannot block out.

Tapping

Ultimate Guide To Guitar Tapping (technique, Problems, Faq)

Try your best to keep your taps dead on target. If using high gain, the loudest and most prominant notes (i.e. the notes you're tapping) will dominate.

Start slow, speed up gradually! You need to try and keep that tapping rhythm constant - don't just tap as fast as you can without any thought for timing!

If your taps sound a little dead and lifeless, i.e. they don't resonate enough, try pulling off the string slightly, in a downwards plucking motion as soon as you've tapped down onto it. Use exactly the same technique as you would with a standard pull off.

The Different Ways You Can Use Guitar Tapping To Enhance Your Sound

With slower guitar tapping rhythms, you want to slightly pluck the string with your tapping finger so it'll resonate as you pull away, but you don't want to pull off too harshly or it'll sound like a bend!

As you start to tap quicker, the pulling off action becomes less important, as you'll only be holding on each note for literally a fraction of a second.

Now let's try the same thing but with movement in our fret hand fingers. This is one way of creating a guitar tapping melody - your tapping finger taps the same note (known as a pedal note) whilst your fret hand does the change work.

You Simply Have To Keep Tapping Points On The Fretboard With Either Hands, Without Plucking Any String.

Now, it's up to you whether you decide to change fret/note using more than one finger, or just slide the one finger around. Each has a different effect.