Oooh, this thread has the makings for excellence. Can't wait to see it develop. In the meantime, I have to mute that f*&king G-string. Guess I have to find a better position for my tapping hand. For trills, are we aiming for 2+ minutes for our tapping fingers too? I worked up to sextuplets at 140, but definitely not for 2+ minutes. I suppose I know what the answer is already...

With trills I started at 2mins back in the day in every permutation. Then 5mins. 10mins. And so on. These days I'll do 15mins on one finger if I have the time. 10mins each finger/permutation BARE MINIMUM is what we're shooting for.

Yeah, why did I expect any different than the fretting hand? Yikes, gotta go practice.

Yes, this thread will be awesome before the end...

Awesome vid, Ursin - thanks for posting it. In all these years it never occurred to me to mute with my right hand while tapping. Now I know :)

No problem dudes. We'll continue with more of this. Takes a while to get it down. The muting is definitely an issue as with most things on guitar when playing with gain/fuzz/distortion/volume.

If you're not following me on twitter @ursinderoche or haven't liked my Facebook page www.facebook.com/UrsinDeRoche please do.

I could be the last person on the planet not on Facebook, but I 'liked' you through my wife's account. No clue what that does but if it let's me know when I can buy your music, well then sweet.

nice guitar BTW Ursin, what specific Musicman model is it?

Quote: NicholasJacquet wrote in post #10

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nice guitar BTW Ursin, what specific Musicman model is it?

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Hey guys,

Here's my attempt at tapping exercise 1, plus some related stuff:



I haven't practiced this as much as I should have done, but thought I'd show my progress anyway. What I'd like to be able to do here is to move quickly/cleanly between the fourth and fifth positions on every right-hand tap (just like the end of Eruption). Not quite there yet. (I haven't had a chance to practice Ex 2, and my cold attempt at it sounded terrible.)

Last week I learned the notes to the Crazy Train solo. I've obviously got a long way to go, but I thought I'd include it since it has an interesting tapping variation at the start. This is in groups of six, with the lead note from the right hand, followed by a pinky-first-pinky-first-pinky trill. The trills towards the end are also something I'm working on. In his vid about trill practice, Pebber says to do most work with the harder combinations (2nd + 3rd, 2nd + 4th and 3rd + 4th). In order to play this Rhoads-style lick, I thought I'd make practicing the simpler combinations more challenging by moving them up and down the neck. As you can see - this strategy has yet to pay off ;)

Following this, I've included a ham-fisted and slow attempt to the tapping section of Spanish Fly. Ursin - I for one would be very happy if in a future tapping lesson you showed how to cleanly move between strings without all of the awful noise I seem to be producing.

Finally, a bit of legato work. This tapping thread reminded me how important legato is to this kind of music, so I thought I'd brush up on it. Still working on getting a good clean sound when descending. And, as you can hear, I have a lot of work to do on damping the other strings.

Critique away!

Hats off Cliff. Nice attempt. Start doing a lot of trills to build up that left hand. Also, watch the bending.

You are right! A lot of legato! Good workout for the left hand. Do as much trilling as you can and it will improve!

Thanks, man - you can be sure there'll be more trill practice for me :).

(Every time I bend a note, my wife feels obliged to come into the bedroom and pull a face to let me know it's out of tune...)

Here's a good vid of EVH doing lots of tapping. There are plenty of closeups where you can see his technique:

I recorded a video containing ursins tapping figures(the full roll was new to me), and variations with double tab(randy rhoads style variation) and 2 fingers on the right hand( sloppy style variation^^) i fucked up a lot of times in this haha

Sounds great Kromp really clear and even, time to start moving accross the strings.

Quote: K Kromp wrote in post #20

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I recorded a video containing ursins tapping figures(the full roll was new to me), and variations with double tab(randy rhoads style variation) and 2 fingers on the right hand( sloppy style variation^^) i fucked up a lot of times in this haha

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"and a lot of space between the end of the neck and the palm of the hand"

So much wisdom in this one little phrase! Only now am I finding this out for myself.

^^ On that. Are there situations where we can, or actually should, lightly anchor the palm of our fretting hand on the neck for added stability/accuracy/cleanliness? While having space is something I too see as necessary like 99% of the time, I seem to do much better anchoring it where my fretting hand index finger meets the palm in certain circumstances. This video illustrates where on the hand I seem to anchor it, and a situation that I simply can't come close to playing without anchoring it.

I see. I try to always hold the hand parallel to the fingerboard. Steve is using "rock hand" here and, it works very well for him! He was always one of my favorites. My hand will turn like this...usually for bending. I do understand what you are saying. Some of these pull off licks are difficult to do with the classical technique but, if you practice them that way, they can be easily done.

In fact, Pebber would always tell me my left hand was crap! So, I intentionally said to myself, "I am going to play everything with classical left hand technique, no matter what it is." And, so I did that for a long time. I use "rock hand" every now and then, but if I do, it's on purpose and not by accident. My hand WANTS to go to classical form. I have to PURPOSELY make it go into "rock hand" mode. Classical form is now my default and "rock hand" is something I use for bending or a few other things here and there but on purpose, not by accident or not because I cannot play them with the classical technique, I just choose not to for a myriad of reasons. Anyway, this lick Steve is playing can be easily played with the classical form with practice and I would suggest just that.

Also, Steve brings up some very good points here about visualization, musical meditation, etc.

Funny, because I teach kids who will say "teach me a song" but they don't listen to any music!!! How can you play a blues lick if you've never listened to the blues? How can you play sarod if you've never listened to McLaughlin or the Indian classical musicians???

So, listening to music should be a priority for everyone everyday of your life.

I HATE when people cover Hendrix. It always sounds like shit to me. But, I'm trying to cover "All Along The Watchtower." Just a personal thing I have. I can play the song, no problem...but I don't want to play the notes. It almoist has NOTHING to do with the actual notes. I want to channel a vibe. It's not Jimi's vibe...but it's the vibe I get whenever I hear that tune. What is the vibe? For me, I get this feeling of struggle and ferocious energy. I think that feeling of STRUGGLE and ENERGY is conveyed in the tune by the guitar playing and lyrics but more so THE DELIVERY of those notes from the late 60's to the present to your ears by Hendrix from the great beyond.

So, I have been listening to a lot of Hendrix to try my best to TRANSLATE the vibe I feel to the people in the audience when I play it.

You have to think in your head of what kind of guitarist you want to be. Close your eyes and imagine you are on stage at a big sold out theater. Place is packed and ready to see YOU! Your band walks on stage and starts the first song. You walk onto the stage to cheers!

What do you look like? What do you sound like? What is the vibe you are conveying?

Imagine that and then start working towards that.

Learning on one of these would certainly help the right hand. for two hand tapping.
Chapman Stick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2Pr3Imfwcg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x98M4OrOZII

Great to listen to if nothing else

Oh and one more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbdmzIVRNxs