The touch guitar is a type of guitar that has strings and is part of the guitar family. It is made to be played by tapping the fretboard, not by strumming the strings.

History

The touch or tapping technique was officially created by American guitarist Jimmie Webster in his 1952 book titled The Illustrated Touch System.

Webster gave credit to pickup designer Harry DeArmond for first showing how touch-style playing could work. Webster worked with Gretsch Guitars to design a special pickup for the Touch System (which sent the bass and melody sounds to two different amplifiers), but this idea did not become popular in stores.

Unlike Webster, who played on a single-necked guitar, guitarist and guitar maker Dave Bunker created, built, and patented (in 1961) the first double-necked, headless, touch-tapping instrument called the DuoLectar. Both guitars used a two-handed tapping technique, but Webster used a single-necked guitar, while Bunker used his double-necked DuoLectar guitar.

Webster’s tapping technique can be heard on a 1959 recording. In 1960, Bunker first showed his double-necked instrument to the Portland Oregonian newspaper and later on the nationally broadcast television show Ozark Jubilee. His designs eventually led to his double-necked touch guitar in 1975.

Other designs followed. These included the single-neck Chapman Stick (developed by Emmett Chapman in 1970 and made in 1974), the single-neck Warr Guitar (first made in 1991), and the single-neck Mobius Megatar. Other touch guitars included the Solene, Chuck Soupios’s dual-necked BiAxe (patented in 1980 and made in the early 1980s), and Sergio Santucci’s TrebleBass.

Merle Travis sometimes used a tapping style on his single-neck, strummed guitar, as did Roy Smeck, George Van Eps, Barney Kessel, and Harvey Mandell. Later years saw musicians like Eddie Van Halen, Stanley Jordan, Steve Vai, Jeff Healey, Fred Frith, Hans Reichel, Elliott Sharp, and Markus Reuter use tapping techniques in their music.