Tapping is a playing technique that can be used on any stringed instrument, but which is most commonly used on guitar. The technique involves a string being fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion. This is in contrast to standard techniques that involve fretting with one hand and picking with the other. Tapping is the primary technique intended for instruments such as the Chapman Stick.
Niccolò Paganini, the 19th century violin master, one of the first innovators of musical instrument tapping.
Jazz guitarist Roy Smeck, seen in the 1926 short film His Pastimes, was an early popularizer of tapping.
Enver Izmailov, a strictly tapping Ukrainian folk and jazz guitar player in 2009.
Stanley Jordan, a jazz guitarist, relies extensively on tapping.
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted and typically has six or twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A guitar pick may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant hollow chamber on the guitar, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.
Instrument labeled "cythara" in the Stuttgart Psalter, a Carolingian psalter from 9th century Paris.
19th-century guitar made by luthier Manuel de Soto held by Spanish guitarist Rafael Serrallet
Guitar collection in Museu de la Música de Barcelona
The Guitar Player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer