I’ve never met an acoustic guitar that didn’t deserve a good spanking. In the hunt for exciting new sounds, you may find that even the most delicate looking, ornately crafted steel-string just needs to get slapped—hard. Why? Well, as one quick listen to the full-contact guitar playing of Preston Reed, Monte Montgomery, Kaki King, or the late, great Michael Hedges will show you, slapping a steel-string not only adds a thrilling percussive element to your riffs, it also allows you to send bright harmonics flying forth from your guitar with each strike of your hand, like sparks shooting off a blacksmith’s anvil.
Just as it’s best to learn to walk before you try to run, it’s advisable to learn how to tap before you slap. For instance, the ordinary harmonics in Ex. 1 are not plucked, but struck—they’re tapped using six quick strikes of the picking hand’s index (or middle) finger exactly over the 12th fret. In the tablature staff, each tapped harmonic is represented by two numbers: its fretted position (in this case “0”) and its diamond- enclosed tapped position, which, in the case of an octave harmonic, will be exactly 12 frets higher. To make a harmonic really chime, your tapping finger should be slightly limber so that when your wrist propels it into the fretboard, it bounces off the string immediately after the string collides with the fret, like a piano hammer bouncing off piano wire.
Now, go for a much bigger sound by slapping four 12th-fret harmonics simultaneously using your fully extended index or middle finger (or some combination of the two) as suggested by the harmonic clusters in Ex. 2. Or take a more “funk bass” approach and smack the strings with the side of your thumb. Remember to also try