Tapping

[BassWindu711]

I am new to tapping and I have been experimenting with some techniques i have come across while playing. Anybody got any tips i could use? Thanks!

 

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

The very first videos I posted to my YouTube channel are a "tapping mini-course" series. Check them out. Hopefully they will be helpful to you (my apologies in advance for the ultra-homemade video and audio quality). Here's the first out of six parts:

 

[Rev J]

One of the first tunes I learned on bass was "Terminal Beach" by Stu Hamm:



Transcriptions are easy to find and you'll get alot of new technical insight from learning it.

Stay Brown,
Rev J

 

[t77mackie]

+1 on the Stu Hamm.

Try to find the Radio Free Albemuth CD. It's a classic.



Good luck.

 

[DiabolusInMusic]

A big tip I can offer is when tapping with your plucking hand your pinky doesn't tap, slap that son of a gun right to the fingerboard, it will hit with more force and ring better.

Run chord shapes/arrpegios, I found it very helpful to teach tapping and chords.

 

[GMO]

good videos

 

[t77mackie]

I see most guitar / bass players right hand technique is to align their hand / fingers parallel with the strings and tap in a counter clockwise manner. The way I do it is I have my hand / fingers parallel with the frets and I tap clockwise.

Any thoughts / comments / observations / advice about this?

- Thanx.

 

[BassWindu711]

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[XylemBassGuitar]

Have the action lowered on your bass (unless it's already very low). IMO, tapping a bass with medium to high action is fairly prohibitive.

 

[jbailes]

Another thing that hasn't been mentioned yet: Wooten covers tapping somewhat in his super slap dvd. He breaks apart a chord where the fretting hand is playin 2 notes of a chord, and the tapping hand is playing another 2 notes of the chord, but higher up the fretboard. Additionally, I'd start out playing diads, or double stops, with the tapping hand, and then work toward arpeggiating the chords.

 

[5 string tapper]

+infinity on Wooten but probably not the best place to start since he is really advanced. Lots of good videos on Youtube but if you really want to get serious and start from scratch I recommend Jean Baudin's tapping book specifically designed for 5 string bass. His method starts out simple and progresses, by the end you could definitely devour Stuart Hamm and Victor Wooten's material (at least attempt most of it).

www.jeanbaudin.com

Also a nice intro lesson from tapping jazz guitar master Stanley Jordan :

www.stanleyjordan.com/Technique/starting.html