One area of guitar playing that is widely neglected is left hand tapping. Left hand tapping has a sound similar to sweep arpeggios, but is a little smoother with a legato sound, connecting every note with no breaks in between. Heavy practicing is strongly recommended, however, it can lead to fast mastery of many techniques. After many years, the search for new techniques gets more difficult. The search for new ideas led me to master left hand tapping.
Left hand tapping makes it possible to play a wider array of arpeggios because the need for a pick is eliminated. When you start to get good at it you will realize that there are techniques you wouldn’t want to bother using a pick for. Now, I know what you devout alternate picker are thinking right now. “You’re cheating man, if you had any technique you’d use a pick.” “Or, I’m going to master this with a pick”. To you I ask,” did Eddie Van Halen decide to use a pick when he played the ending to Eruption?” and “has he ever been accused of cheating?” “Did Yngwie decide to try to alternate pick all his sweep arpeggios”? What I’m saying is, don’t think of these techniques as competing with your other techniques. Embrace them. They’re new. You can innovate with them.
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Here is my Left Hand Tapping Etude #1. You can choose how legato or staccato you would like them to sound using varying degrees of palm muting. For a full legato sound, I recommend a muting device such as a wrist band at the top of the neck to keep things quiet. All the great tappers use a muting device near the top of the neck. See Jennifer Batten and Stanley Jordan.
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We are in the key of F, using a classically based chord progression, voice led keeping the common tones. For you theory heads out there, it’s a I maj7 – V/V (7th in bass) – I maj.7 – ii half dim (7th in bass) – V progression.
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Give it a try. When I was first learning how to do this, I used to keep a “Shred Neck” in my car, to exercise while driving, especially with the 1st finger taps. I think the other fingers are more used to hammering and shouldn’t be a problem. Just one caveat, you will find notes on the same fret on adjacent strings. This means you will have to adjust your hand to tap more than one finger on the same fret when switching between strings.
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It is presented here in two keys. F and Bb. It’s always good to practice your licks in several keys if not in all keys.
