Tapping damper

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A tapping damper is a mechanical accessory primarily intended for musicians with electric guitars. A technique often played there - especially after the era of the rock musician E. Van Halen - is so-called tapping , with the left and right hands on the fingerboard playing special, mostly fast, combinations of serve and trigger bindings. Due to the unusual position of the right hand (for left-handed guitar players, what is said here is “mirror-inverted”) it is not possible to mute empty strings with conventional techniques. It is precisely this dampening of empty (not tapped) strings that is important, because empty strings are able to swing open, as several fingers are practically tapped on the fingerboard. If the open strings do not tonally match the tapping lick or tapping riff in question, an unpleasant noise is created.

Function of the tapping damper

The tapping damper is always attached to the saddle of the guitar in the area of ​​the 1st fret and not to the bridge. A fabric-like surface that gently rests on the strings at the transition from guitar fingerboard to guitar head prevents them from "rocking". Since most tapping riffs contain fingered notes, but not open strings, the use of the tapping damper rarely results in a tonal disadvantage; the advantages outweigh the advantages.

Types of tapping damper

  • The simplest form of the tapping damper is an elastic hair tie, which otherwise z. B. is taken to tie a pony hairstyle. It can easily be pushed over the 1st fret from the “behind the nut” area in the game flow. The disadvantage here is the problematic use on guitars with vibrato systems of the so-called floating type, since the saddle mostly secures the strings with relatively high-rise Allen cylinder head screws in order to prevent rapid detuning.
  • The tapping damper as defined by Jennifer Batten: There is a joint in the head area with a small felt mat attached to one of the arms, which is swiveled onto the strings as soon as you want to perform the tapping mode. A disadvantage here can be that irreparable manipulation of the material of the head has to take place.
  • Another simple type of steaming is to wrap the area of ​​the 1st guitar fret with a sock; The damping function here is analogous to points 1 and 2.

Simulate tapping damper by hand

  • Some virtuoso guitarists play - instead of classic tapping - complex legato figures with their left hand alone (again based on right-handers). Strictly speaking, this is not yet tapping, but it can sound very close. For the sake of the show effect, the right picking hand is now crossed over the left gripper arm and, as a barre grip, going from the low to the high E string on fret 1 is dampened with light pressure.