Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Simple Guitar Finger Tapping Tips

Finger tapping is a great way to play like Van Halen- seriously! Although he never invented it, he made it famous through a rock masterpiece entitled "Eruption." Guitar finger tapping involves rapidly tapping the finger board with your plucking hand while you're fretting hand is busy with rapid series of hammer-ons. Word of warning though, you need to play this with slower tempo before building up your speed.

There are different ways on how to play guitar finger tapping, but this is one is the most important: clean up your tones. You need to mute all the extra strings before tapping. Forgetting to do so will create unnecessary noise pulsating through your speakers; coupled with the overdrive cranking up your sound and what you have is total disaster. In order to mute the open strings, place your arms along the guitar's body. If you are not comfortable with this, wrap a rubber band around the first fret. What is important is to mute the open strings in order to lessen the distortion.

Your plucking thumb should be on top of the neck-anchoring the rest of the fingers so that they will stay in place. To keep your rhythm in-check, play with a metronome. Initially set it on the slowest tempo and climb your way up to the quicker pace.

It is much easier to tap with your middle finger. Don't get into trouble of hiding your pick just to tap with your index. It's just a waste of time. So, with those in mind try these exercises and bring your guitar playing to the next level.

On the highest E-string, place your index fretting finger on the 5th fret and your ring fretting finger on the 8th fret. Next, tap the 12th fret higher E-string with your middle plucking finger. Tap it really hard in order to bring out the sound before dong a downward motion (v). The last step is to pull-off the ring finger from the 8th with a downward motion (V). To begin the next cycle, perform a hammer-on with your ring finger.

One you've had enough practice, try a two-hand tapping-where the left hand plays the bass notes while your right hand gives out the melody. This technique is similar with playing a piano.

For more reference about finger tapping, you may want to listen to different guitarists like: Kirk Hamett's solo in Metallica's album, "...And Justice For All"; Joe Satriani's "Surfing with The Alien"; Diamond Head's "Am I Evil"; Steve Hackett in "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" and any solos by Steve Vai.

Developing a finger tapping skill requires constant practice and finger strength. Don't be discouraged if you are not seeing any improvement.

For more information about guitar tapping techniques and online electric guitar lessons, please visit our site. Our site has a lot of intermediate guitar songs, check them all out.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anthony_K_Pitts

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