Editing Tapping (section)

===Two-handed tapping===
[[Image:Emmett chapman 1969.jpg|thumb|[[Emmett Chapman]], jazz guitarist and inventor of the [[Chapman Stick]] guitar, using the Free Hands tapping method in 1969.]]

Tapping can be used to play [[polyphony|polyphonic]] and counterpoint music on a guitar, making available eight (and even nine) fingers as stops. For example, the right hand may fret the treble melody while the left hand plays an accompaniment. Therefore, it is possible to produce music written for a keyboard instrument, such as [[J.S. Bach]]'s [[Inventions and Sinfonias (J. S. Bach)|Two-part Inventions]].

The main disadvantage to tapping is reduced range of [[timbre]], and in fact it is common to use a [[audio level compression|compressor]] effect to make notes more similar in volume. As tapping produces a "clean tone" effect, and since the first note usually sounds the loudest (unwanted in some music like [[jazz]]), dynamics are a main concern with this technique, though Stanley Jordan and many Stick players are successful in this genre.

Depending on the orientation of the player's right hand, this method can produce varying degrees of success at shaping dynamics. Early experimenters with this idea, like Harry DeArmond, his student Jimmie Webster, and Dave Bunker, held their right hand in a conventional orientation, with the fingers parallel with the strings. This limits the kind of musical lines the right hand can play. The Chapman method puts the fingers parallel to the frets.