Lap Tapping (???)

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This is nuts: Some French-Canadian guy plays his acoustic guitar by setting it on his lap and tapping the strings like piano keys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbndgwfG22k
(he's got a few other clips on YouTube as well)

It's a funny technique, innit? Has anyone seen something like this before?

― King-a-Ling (King-a-Ling), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 22:24 (eighteen years ago)

I have, but it fails me as to who in particular uses it.

― Myke. (Myke Weiskopf), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 22:45 (eighteen years ago)

Jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 22:49 (eighteen years ago)

sounds great. fun to watch. but that isn't vastly different from overhand tapping methods used by lots of major jazz players and rock guitarists..is it? just on the lap as opposed to standing.

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 22:57 (eighteen years ago)

technique aside, that's a really great song.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 23:06 (eighteen years ago)

doesn't michael hedges do this kind of thing?

― am0n (am0n), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 23:18 (eighteen years ago)

i've tried to do this but i always get these ghost notes behind the notes i'm fretting, dissonant. i wonder what i'm doing wrong. maybe it's in the tuning.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 23:25 (eighteen years ago)

xxxpost

Good point. The only major difference is that this guy taps with both hands, whereas someone like Eddie Van Halen uses one hand for tapping and one for fretting. But I'm easily impressed by a good show-off.

― King-a-Ling (King-a-Ling), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 23:30 (eighteen years ago)

it sounds a bit like steve tibbets

― Laptop (laptop), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 23:31 (eighteen years ago)

> i've tried to do this but

I think you need very thin strings.

― bendy (bendy), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 23:32 (eighteen years ago)

that's really cool.

― jackl (jackl), Wednesday, 27 September 2006 23:58 (eighteen years ago)

I think I saw this guy at the Winnipeg folk festival.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 28 September 2006 00:50 (eighteen years ago)

Nope. Somebody similar maybe I guess.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 28 September 2006 00:53 (eighteen years ago)

I apologize for not using the search function.

― King-a-Ling (King-a-Ling), Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:08 (eighteen years ago)

Ass Tapping

― PappaWheelie has no answers to any question that requires actual thought (PappaW, Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:10 (eighteen years ago)

Meh. Way too Bonaroo for me.

― Brooker Buckingham (Brooker B), Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:17 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, I've seen stuff like that, but this guy does it well. Still, it's sort of a novelty act - the music is way too light and new agey to ever really catch.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:20 (eighteen years ago)

sounds great. fun to watch. but that isn't vastly different from overhand tapping methods used by lots of major jazz players and rock guitarists..is it? just on the lap as opposed to standing.

Yeah, it's not different at all. It's 8-finger tapping, and I've seen lots of people do it. It's neato, but tends to be a party trick kind of thing.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:34 (eighteen years ago)

Just like ass-tapping!

― PappaWheelie has no answers to any question that requires actual thought (PappaW, Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:35 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not a guitar player; how hard is it to do what he's doing?

― jackl (jackl), Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:47 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not a guitar player; how hard is it to do what he's doing?

It's hard, especially to sound that clean on an acoustic. Tapping like that is done way more often on an electric. Of course, he was amplified. But you have to be very precise and very coordinated; it's like playing the piano (I've seen it referred to as "piano tapping"), both hands are doing different things. And his rhythm was excellent.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:49 (eighteen years ago)

Well, it's the sort of shit you'd have to practice quite a lot.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:49 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, what Steve said. The guy is also quite musical, I'd say, even though what he's playing is boring.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:50 (eighteen years ago)

OTOH, it's no harder than any other manner of playing the guitar really really well, I guess.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 28 September 2006 01:50 (eighteen years ago)

Debut album: Laptappin' Manitoba

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Thursday, 28 September 2006 02:06 (eighteen years ago)

I thought for sure this was going to be something really obscene.

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Thursday, 28 September 2006 02:08 (eighteen years ago)

Last winter I orgasmed twice after tapping my pubic bone with a Woody Woodpecker windup toy for half an hour. I uploaded the footage to YouTube, but the sound is horribly out of sync :'(

― King-a-Ling (King-a-Ling), Thursday, 28 September 2006 02:35 (eighteen years ago)

why hasn't anyone mentioned how much this stuff sounds like the books?

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Thursday, 28 September 2006 03:12 (eighteen years ago)

I was gonna say. Could totally pass for a Four Tet b-side.

― rrrr (wolfwolfwolf), Thursday, 28 September 2006 03:21 (eighteen years ago)

If you're prog and you've played a Chapman Stick or a Warrguitar, then the technique is not so alien.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 28 September 2006 04:14 (eighteen years ago)

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