Guest author: Rients Draaisma. Find him on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and Apple Music.
Introduction
When I was around 13, I heard Steve Vai for the first time and was absolutely flabbergasted. I wondered how he made those amazing, out-of-this-world passages. I looked into it and found out it was tapping: he used his picking hand to press notes on the neck. Wow. I started practicing immediately on some licks.
It wasn’t until 2014 that I started developing my tapping more seriously. I decided to get rid of my pick for a while to focus solely on tapping. I would spend at least two or three hours a day jamming to chord progressions with my friend and mentor Kyr van der Werf (YouTube, Facebook, Spotify).
Playing without a pick felt awkward at first, but after a while I started discovering new paths on the guitar. My tapping these days differs substantially from how it used to be. I can now move freely around the neck, whereas before I was imprisoned in a couple of patterns.
Things to do
Here are some of the things I did, and would suggest to anyone who wants to start tapping:
Learn to tap some of the material you can already play with your fretting hand. This stimulates your brain to build a new habit.
At some point I came up with the idea of creating tapping lines based on rhythm. I took some of my favourite drum grooves and converted them into tapping patterns. This helped me a lot, as it brought up different challenges. There are two examples of this in the videos below. Try it.
Example 1
Scale: B Dorian. Notice how the high notes are placed on the snare drum to get the rhythmic accents in the pattern.
Example 2
Scale: B Dorian. Again, the high notes are placed on the snare drum to get the rhythmic accents in the pattern.
