Need Help With Tapping, Jamming finger into string hard, but weak sound comes out :( Options

[F Minor]

Hey Kris,

I've watched several of your tapping 101 lessons and started practicing tapping. However, I am not very successful at it. I have a Parker NiteFly Mojo guitar (similar to one you have but with SD pickups instead of dimarzio) with light gauge strings. I'm using a line6 amp with high gain, etc. I am trying to practice the simple 19-15-12 Em arpeggio tapping lick you showed in lesson 1 on tapping, but when tapping with the pick hand finger on the 19th I'm getting very low sound that dies off quickly, unless I really hit the string so hard that it hurts. Am I doing something wrong? Or does the technique indeed involve hammering the finger into the string with such force that it's painful? In the video it doesn't look like you're using much force at all with you pick hand. Let me know.

Thanks.

[steve25]

This happens to everyone to begin with i think, your taps will ring out louder when the callus on your pick hand finger starts to develop. Keep practicing and it'll eventually come to you, you'll notice it . But also yes you do have to tap quite hard especially in the beginning

This post has been edited by steve25: Feb 20 2008, 10:34 PM

[Kristofer Dahl]

Well the gear doesn't seem to be the problem - so my quess is that you should be careful where you fretting.

If you are fretting (left hand) or tapping (right hand) above the actual frets your note swill die very quickly!