Beginner Guitar Tapping Lesson

First, the obvious question has to be answered...

What is guitar finger tapping?

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

The below video shows you tapping in action with an "over the shoulder" camera angle...

If you enjoyed that video, check out what else JamPlay offers here.

Once you get round to hammering using 3 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 as usual.

So now we know what tapping is and what it can achieve, where do we start?

Beginner guitar tapping basics

We're gonna start simple - work through this in your own time.

First, Choose the finger you feel most comfortable tapping with

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

Find what's right for you.

If you've not tapped before, you'll need to exercise and work-in this new action for your picking hand and build up callouses (tough skin) on your tapping fingers.

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.

Try the exercise below: fret the string of choice as usual using your natural fret hand. Now you can tap at a particular fret using the finger you've chosen on your picking hand to hammer on and pull off...

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! 

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 trust me, that definitely helps in masking those unwanted noises you simply cannot block out.

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 rhythmic accuracy!

What does it sound like to you?

If taps sound a little dead and lifeless, i.e. they don't resonate enough, try pulling off the string slightly, in a downwards motion as soon as you've tapped down onto it...

This takes time to master - 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! When you start to tap a lot quicker, pulling off action becomes less important, as you'll only be holding on each note for literally a fraction of a second.

Remember, you can use a metronome to gradually build up your speed and confidence with guitar tapping.

More beginner guitar tapping exercises

So now we know how to physically tap, albeit with a stationary couple of notes.

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

Try the simple exercise below and, like I said before, speed up gradually but don't lose that rhythm!...

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.

If we use hammer ons and pull offs using our fretting fingers as well as the tapping with our picking finger(s) we can double the effect it has on the sound and rhythm!

All we have to do is assign a sequence of hammer ons and pull offs and arrange them into the order that gets us the sound we want.

Take a look below at the sequence of pull offs and hammer ons I've built on gradually:

Let's start with our fret hand and create a simple hammer on - pull off 2 note phrase...

Click diagram to hear

Now we can add the taps into the existing rhythm however we wish...

The idea is to not lose that initial rhythm we had with our fretting fingers - as soon as another layer is added, you must add it without interrupting that initial rhythm. That's key to building rhythmic accuracy with guitar tapping.

So now we've got a 3 note tapping phrase

We can still add more! Let's try alternately tapping a different note, still keeping in the same rhythm. This requires quite a bit more concentration as you need to pinpoint the correct change of fret for your taps, and of course, the faster you go, the more concentration is needed!

So I'm just swapping around those two tapping notes to add another note to the phrase (and I personally use the same tapping finger to swap between the notes). I suppose most of the time, the more notes included in the phrase, the more the solo will dominate the music.

Like I said before (and you...uh...probably noticed in the clip above) it's difficult to block all unwanted noise when finger tapping, but when accompanied with rhythm guitar (which tapping 99% of the time is) it can disguise some of the noise ;)

Click to hear with rhythm guitar

We still don't have to stop there! Yep, we can add a 3rd, 4th, 5th extra tapping note as part of the sequence if we want. This is where your knowledge of scales comes in handy, or if you're unsure, just try adding a note and listen to see if it sounds good as part of that phrase. Trust your ears and your taste in music!

Remember: tapping's not just for the E and B strings, try it on all 6 strings to see what effect you get!

Beginner guitar tapping part 2

In part 2, we'll be looking at expanding on these basic guitar tapping techniques to make more complex and dynamic phrases. We've still got some essential physical elements to tackle!

For now, don't be afraid to experiment with what you know. Take another look at the tapping video from earlier (including the supplemental content provided), working one string at a time.

Go to Tapping Part 2 >