When Does A Usenet Reply Become An Essay:
(Another Accidental Guitar Lesson)
by marco frucht
You caught me. It was me all along.
I invented tapping in the middle 1700’s when I was in Paris picking up chicks. There was something majikal about playing the guitar back then. You ended up with scores of wives. I mean before weddings even. They were all willing to call themselves your wife with no strings attached. Imagine a wife in every town taking care of your children with no commitment save for an occasional waltz or sarabande. All you had to do was send a buck or two once in a while or maybe a manuscript to show some progress, and of course you must tell them when you’ll be there performing next; if even a year later!
Oy!
I felt like Mischy Barishokov, I had so many wives. And none of them were formal weddings. So no paternity suits! And all because I could tap. We called it “tokarring” back then.
It was my 35th wife, Elena Sanz, who coined the phrase “tapping.”
“My husband can tap like a racehorse,” she was heard saying. And then I was challenged by guitarists all over France, Spain and also Honduras for some strange reason. It wasn’t until I got to Chiapas, in the late 1800’s before I knew that people had been tapping since long before me. Chiapanecas can tap your socks off. I believe Charo was the best at it, even if she wasn’t the first.
Oh, April 1, 1894, I remember that date well. Charo and me tapping by the moonlight until 4 am, maybe 5. But then her father came by with a huge musket and called me a “dirty Castillian tapper” and told me if I didn’t stay away from Charo he’d have my P, I, M AND my A cut off.
Last I knew Charo was married to a cabinetmaker and recorded a dozen or so albums herself. All her children know how to tap. Actually it comes naturally to them.
Tapping was a lost art until the 1960’s. Before that I thought for sure, I was the only one still doing it. Then suddenly Andres Segovia added tapping to his repertoire. And next thing you know, going into his 70’s Segovia’s got newborn babies singing his praises in NY, Boston, Paris, and Honduras just like me. Oh, Andres, Viagra’s got nothing on you, babe.
Everyone knows the story of how Eddie Van Halen learned to tap. He found out about it in a musty old issue of Playboy behind the orange barn in Santa Cruz, CA on a hot september day in 1970. The thirteen year old was reading an interview I gave to George Plimpton where I basically described tapping in full detail.
“You put your pinky here…”
The story was called “Making Her Sing,” but I swear I had nothing to do with the titling. Probably Plimpton’s sick sense of humour.
Eddie (EVH became his nickname, or Vertical Hold for short) couldn’t wait to try it himself. He was doing it in front of television one day and saw a flamenco star named Bertilucci Valderon tapping her little butt off on one of those Brady Bunch type shows and he just knew he had to tap with her.
“Get me Valderon,” he told his agent on the phone. The agent called her, but she wouldn’t return the calls for days. So vertical hold Halen took matters into his own hands. He hopped into his maserati and found out where she’d be driving her mustang. He came to a stop light and speeding up next to her, he tapped into her.
The rest is history. They have 72 children, almost all of them of tapping age, and Eddie gives an occasional tapping lesson at one of the local guitar shops; where he still furthers the myth that he invented the techique of tapping.
Nah, I don’t say anything, because I know who started it.
And besides, who else has to know besides you and me? Oh and my wives.
Tapped In Wisconsin,
marco
On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Craig Nelson wrote:
> tapping was a classical technique long before evh or anybody else tried it.
correct.
> Steve Cobham wrote in message
> > On 26 Jun 1999 15:22:37 GMT, (Magicween) wrote:
> > >Give me a specific example to prove me wrong, that guy from Genisis is
> known as “The Father of tap”.
No! What was said, was “that is one tapped daddy.”
> > Harvey mandel before Steve Hackett and before HM some jazz guy, but the name escapes me.
Byrd? Reinhardt?