Tapping after Eddie

[ziggysmalls]

I tried to post this in Guitars101 but people did not understand what I was looking for or just did not care.

We all know Eddie did not invent tapping. Steve Hacket, Billy Gibbons, Ace Frehley, etc did limited versions of it prior to VH1.

However when Eddie came out it became a technique. I am curious to know when other guitarists started to use it and actually put it to tape or vinyl. How long did it take for it to show up on albums?

The earliest I can think of is on Blizzard of Oz. Randy tapped on I Don't Know and Crazy Train. That was recorded in 79 and published in 80.

Does anybody know of any recordings between VH1 (or VH2) and Blizzard that features tapping?

[Wickett]

Good question, so I cheated and looked it up.

wikipedia has some good tapping examples, including the RR one mentioned. I didn't see anything specific to the time period between VHI and II.





Ace Frehley of KISS used tapping on solos before Van Halen's debut, as did Angus Young of AC/DC. Young usually does one-handed tapping (such as at the end of the solo to "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" and in "Baby, Please Don't Go". Performances of both songs are viewable on the Family Jewels DVD.). More notably, Young taps the famous intro to "Thunderstruck" in most performances, including the music video, even though he did not do this during the original studio recording.

A more recent example of tapping is the song "Lip Gloss and Black" by the metalcore band Atreyu. Their guitarist Dan Jacobs uses a simple tapping technique as an intro to the song, as well as it being part of a verse.

Another example recorded before Van Halen's debut is on Orchestra Luna's only album Orchestra Luna, on the outro to "Doris Dreams". Randy Roos is the guitar player.

Brian May of the British band Queen employed tapping in may songs including "Cyborg" on his solo album Another World. This style of playing can be seen in the 1975 "Bohemian Rhapsody" promotional video.

Joe Satriani, in 1987 published a hugely influential rock guitar album called Surfing with the Alien which included a neoclassical piece called Midnight with very fast cross-string arpeggios. Another good example is Days at the Beach from the Album Flying in a Blue Dream.

Tony Levin began playing Chapman Stick with Peter Gabriel's band in the 1970s. He later went on to feature The Stick heavily in the King Crimson band of the 1980s and 1990s. The most famous track is Elephant_Talk_(single), with Levin playing the entire bass/chord groove at the outset.

Dream Theater bassist John Myung frequently uses this technique on bass guitar, he also plays Chapman Stick.

Enver Izmailov employs two-handed tapping to perform mainstream jazz, Turkish, Uzbek and Balkan folk music, and classical music.

Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist Randy Rhoads applied tapping to some of his guitar solos. Some of these include Flying High Again off of the second album he wrote with Ozzy Osbourne, Diary of a Madman. Another occasion when he used tapping in a solo with Ozzy was on the famous Crazy Train solo off of Osbourne's first solo album, Blizzard of Ozz.

Ilusive's guitarist Ell Stone employed tapping in the solo of Path Of Destruction.

Billy Sheehan uses extremely fast multi-finger tapping in many of his solos.

Stuart Hamm, another ground breaking bassist, recorded a complete arrangement of the piano piece the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven on his album Radio Free Albemuth which he often plays at least some of in his solo spots when playing with Joe Satriani.

Modern metal bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan often use an extreme form of tapping. This form can be found in many of their songs, good example of which can be heard at the beginning of their debut album Calculating Infinity where the guitar players use fingertap with 3 fingers on each hand.

Michael Romeo of the band Symphony X uses tapping and legato in almost all his solos. The bassist Michael Lepond also uses bass tapping sometimes.

T.J. Helmerich developed an innovative two-handed tapping guitar playing style, also called 8-finger guitar playing.

[Ed shred]

Long Before Eddie there was a Jazz guitarist named Jimmy Webster that was around I belive in the 50's and sixties that was doing a tapping thing but it was more of a touch technique, like Stanley Jordan. And he actually did entire songs not just a flash here or there. That is the earliest guitarist that I know of that was doing it and doing it well. I could be wrong on the name though but he was for sure a jazz guitarist back in the day.

[Brett]

There is no tapping in "Dirty Deeds," it's just normal hammer-ons. I don't think some people understand what tapping even is. What Eddie does isn't really tapping, it's two-handed hammer-ons.

[Dino5150]

Don't forget Jeff Watson (Night Ranger).
He had an awesome 8-finger technique.

[Rick S]

There is no tapping in "Dirty Deeds," it's just normal hammer-ons. I don't think some people understand what tapping even is. What Eddie does isn't really tapping, it's two-handed hammer-ons.

agreed , plus he uses a few differnt tap techniques.

1.the fast two handed tapping is like hammering with and puling off with the right hand, like a trill . then hammering and flick pulling off with the left hand a few frets up the neck. for example "eruption.".

2.then theres the technique where he hammers a note bends it up and holds it. he then hammers and pulls off on various notes(fret positions) on the bent string. many examples of this on VH2.

3.then there is tap harmonics , where he frets a note or notes (i.e. a bar chord) and taps the actual frets one octave higher or he will tap the frets at differnts places to get different harmonic tones . for example intro to "women in love" the intro to "mean street" or the solo in "push comes to shove."


4.there is the slurry or assending/desending tapping where he hammers notes with his left hand then taps a note on the same string with the right then releases or pulls all the notes off then swithes to the next upper or lower string and does it again. for example the first part off the solo in "hot for teacher."

5. the piano technique , left hand over the neck muting the strings and tapping with two fingers while tapping with two fingers on the right hand. for example listen to the solos from the "1984" tour and the "carnal knowledge" and "right here right now" tour.

eddie is/was pretty innovative.

[SuckaInA3Piece]

agreed , plus he uses a few differnt tap techniques.

1.the fast two handed tapping is like hammering with and puling off with the right hand, like a trill . then hammering and flick pulling off with the left hand a few frets up the neck. for example "eruption.".

2.then theres the technique where he hammers a note bends it up and holds it. he then hammers and pulls off on various notes(fret positions) on the bent string. many examples of this on VH2.

3.then there is tap harmonics , where he frets a note or notes (i.e. a bar chord) and taps the actual frets one octave higher or he will tap the frets at differnts places to get different harmonic tones . for example intro to "women in love" the intro to "mean street" or the solo in "push comes to shove."


4.there is the slurry or assending/desending tapping where he hammers notes with his left hand then taps a note on the same string with the right then releases or pulls all the notes off then swithes to the next upper or lower string and does it again. for example the first part off the solo in "hot for teacher."

5. the piano technique , left hand over the neck muting the strings and tapping with two fingers while tapping with two fingers on the right hand. for example listen to the solos from the "1984" tour and the "carnal knowledge" and "right here right now" tour.

eddie is/was pretty innovative.

Example #2 is probably my favorite technique that I learned from EVH. He does it so fluidly though. I still work on it. Sounds very cool.

[ziggysmalls]

I am getting off subject here a little bit but the amazing thing IMO is that if anybody plays with their right hand on the neck, people think of Eddie.

Its almost like when you see a Strat style guitar you think of Leo Fender. Granted we all know he did not invent right handed playing but he sure in hell was a good salesmen. Came up with a lot of cool stuff that has transcended styles and era's.

[SteveKrutzler]

To me this is kind of like arguing Elvis didn't revolutionize rock n roll because Sinatra and others had already been singing for decades. Who cares if some other artist did a minor right-handed touch on the fretboard here or there. The fact is they didn't have the ability or creativity to actually do anything with it. Eddie did. Therefore, he deserves the credit. Period.

[vanzefflin]

Gregory Hines did some pretty mean tapping and I remember an episode of Sanford and Son where Lamont did some tapping as well.