Greg Howe Tapping

Welcome to my new lesson!

This time we are looking at some tapping concepts used by the brilliant Greg Howe.

"Gregory "Greg" Howe (born December 8, 1963) is an American guitarist and composer. As an active musician for nearly thirty years, he has released eight studio albums in addition to collaborating with a wide variety of artists. One particularly noteworthy aspect of Howe's legato technique is the "hammer-on from nowhere", in which a note is hammered-on to a different string without first being picked." - Wikipedia

Greg is really inventive with his use of tapping. He will use a tapped note to take the place of a 3rd finger when using 3 note per string runs. This was developed because he wanted to develop runs that sounded as smooth as a keyboard or saxophone, as he is influenced by jazz fusion.

This approach has a great advantage to us guitar players because it can enable us to reach higher speeds with less effort.
There is no picking involved at all so when we hit another string we have to use our fretting hand by hammering on 'from nowhere', which is one of Greg's trademarks.

In the 2nd half of the lesson we will explore a different concept that involves stepping down through a shape in stages and then ascending in stages. Hammer-ons from nowhere are also a crucial feature of this lick.

Not only do you learn these ace ideas but you will be practising them in 3 tempos. 8th note triplets, 16th notes and 16th note triplets. This is so you can ease yourself into the groove and add a bit more speed each time. It's like a real time practise session with a backing track !

So, if you're interested in tapping at all then you must learn these concepts!

Enjoy!

Tuning: E A D B G E - Standard Tuning

Tempo: 110 bpm

Key: A

Gear:
Ibanez RG7421, Nick Crow 8505 Amp Plugin, Guitar Suite Tube Screamer, Poulin LeCab 2.

Scales: