Fretting Hand Body Percussion

We are looking at introducing fret hand body percussion in our playing. Once again, we are in Drop D tuning for this exercise and so, require the low E string to be tuned to D. 

Exercise 1 - Method

Similarly to the exercise in lesson 8, we are bringing our picking hand over the fretboard to tap but now, our fretting hand is going to come over to the body of the guitar to slap. This emphasises the way that our two hands can share techniques and start to become very fluid and exciting looking when we play!

• Start with strumming the D chord 

• Upstroke, playing the D, A and Low E

• Then, percussive string slap

This is now where our mechanism for sharing techniques between each hand comes in.

• Strum down on the lower strings

• Hammer-on an octave shape by playing the 3rd fret on the low E and D string, using second and third fingers

• Tap 7th fret of the E and D with first and second finger

• Now, pull-off and release the Low E (D note as we are in Drop D) and the D string

• Straight after, our fretting hand moves underneath the neck to tap the shoulders/top of the guitar (recommend using the middle finger for this…not too hard!)

• Then, percussive string slap

• Finally, fret and pick the 5th fret of the low E string

In the second bar, we essentially do the same thing but we:

• Tap on the 10th fret (rather than the 7th)

• And on the final note, fret and pick the 7th fret of the low E string (rather than the 5th fret)

To finish, we follow all the same steps in the bar as shown above. However we cut the bar short slightly by finishing before the body tap to end the exercise. Then loop!