Electric Guitar: Tapped Bends

When I was about 14 years old I saw a live concert on television in which Edward Van Halen performed some tapped bends on his electric guitar and they blew me away. He did some sliding taps and some bent taps and I immediately thought, "Wow, this man is truly a master of the electric guitar; he has absolute control over it and never makes any mistakes." Although now I consider tapped bends to be a fairly simple technique, they are still interesting musically, and the most difficult thing about them is knowing where to tap so that your notes stay in key. Try out this simple lick that uses tapped bends (apologies for the tablature, which is a little difficult to read):

G string: |-9-7-9b11-14t-(11)-12t-(11)-14t-(11)-16t-(11)-14t-(11)-12t-7-|

What we are doing here is bending the note at the 9th fret up one full step and holding it, then simply tapping onto the bent string with our index or middle fingers at the frets indicated (they have lowercase t's next to them), and, if you like, you can also apply vibrato with your fretting hand from below as you move around tapping different notes and holding the initial bend. Notice the 11's in parentheses because that is the tone sounding out (the 9th bent up one whole step) when pulling off from the tapped notes. This is a nice sounding lick with a smooth legato tone that requires a certain amount of finesse and control between both of your hands, but otherwise it is fairly simple and straightforward to execute.

It's also fairly easy to create your own licks using tapped bends, but the main thing to keep in mind is to work out what notes are "in-key" beforehand, because you can hit some real stinkers if you aren't careful.

Using tapped bends to end certain licks is also fun. Try this one in the key of E Dorian, which could be played at the very end of a solo; and after the highest tapped note is vibratoed for awhile, you could slam into an E minor chord as you head back into the rhythm of the song.

B string: |-12-14-15-| E string: |-12-14-15-17b19-17b19-h-21t~--|

The lick is basically a walk up the scale with two bends on the 17th fret, and on the third bend you tap onto the 21st fret with your middle finger and apply vibrato from below with your fretting hand (the 'h' means to hold the bend). After that, go down the neck and bash out another E minor chord in 'open' position.

Have fun creating more licks that incorporate tapped bends.