Tapboard
Encyclopedia
The term Tapboard is used to describe two separate guitar
-based instruments designed to employ variations of the tapping
technique.
guitarist Francis Dunnery
between 1988 and 1989. While recording demos for It Bites, Dunnery developed a two-handed tapping technique by laying his electric guitar
on his lap and "idly tapping" on the fretboard with both hands, drawing on his additional skills as a drummer. Although not previously enamoured of tapping-style guitar playing, Dunnery was interested enough in his discovery to continue with his approach. He collaborated with Dave Farmiloe (chief repair technician at Arbiter Guitars, who were at the time the UK distributors for Fender Guitars) in order to develop an instrument for the technique. Initial suggestions for the design included "a sphere with strings on", but Farmiloe eventually came up with the less unusual final design.
previously owned by The Boomtown Rats
) mounted in a substance which appears similar to "Blackpool rock
."
The instrument is designed to be played on the lap, on a table or on a table-style stand, in much the same position as a pedal steel
or lap steel guitar
. The playing style involves the use of all ten fingers (and thumbs) in a vaguely pianistic style, with the resulting sound being similar to that of a Chapman Stick
. Dunnery has commented "it's a very rhythmic instrument. And you can always see exactly what you're doing, you can work the patterns out. The things you do are totally different from what you can do on a guitar. You can hit two notes together at either end of the fretboard, you can stagger notes, like you're playing a piano, and play 'impossible' scales.”
The Tapboard is also infamous for featuring a chrome shower hose (which travels from one end of the instrument to the other) with an egg-timer at one end. Both of these initially appeared to have been added as a joke and for decoration, reflecting the eccentric nature of the instrument and Dunnery's ambivalent relationship with the more ludicrous aspects of rock performance. (Dunnery fostered this impression by joking that the feature was added "to see how fast I'm going - eight thousand notes in the time it takes to boil an egg"). However, in 2009 Farmiloe revealed that the shower hose "actually provided the solution for cable routing, some electrical shielding and the ability to mess with the wiring without taking the thing apart", although he did confess that "the egg timer was added last to help Francis boil a perfect egg for an It Bites breakfast!"
The Tapboard was never produced commercially and was not used for subsequent Dunnery recordings and concerts, following Dunnery's journey towards simpler composition and playing styles. Dunnery still possesses the instrument, and claimed to have been using it while recording his 2005 album The Gulley Flats Boys (although there is no aural evidence of its use on the final release). Some fans claim that the Tapboard can be heard being used on the song "I'm In Love" (from Dunnery's 2001 album Man).
Dunnery began using the Tapboard again as a live instrument on his 2009 New Progressives tour, commenting "I don't think I ever fully utilized the true potential of the instrument, so I'm having another go twenty years later. I'm going to break the guitar land speed record and will be performing some of the Tapboard classics as well as some new material!" During the tour, he played a version of the 1989 It Bites track "Charley", which he also re-recorded for his 2009 album It's a Whole New World Out There.
/jazz-fusion bassist Balazs Szendofi (Regina Rostás Quintet, Mindflowers, The Piccolo Inn, The Holdudvar, The Self-Searching System and others). During his time with Mindflower, Szendofi sometimes played a “Szendofi 12-string Grand Tapboard”, which he describes as a “custom creation” designed by his own father Attila Szendofi. The instrument is also sometimes referred to as the "Xu Tap Thing 12". Szendofi’s Tapboard playing can be heard on Mindflowers’ Nuances album (2005). It’s not known whether there is any connection between the Szendofi and Dunnery Tapboards.
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
-based instruments designed to employ variations of the tapping
Tapping
Tapping is a guitar playing technique, where a string is fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion of being pushed onto the fretboard, as opposed to the standard technique being fretted with one hand and picked with the other...
technique.
Origins
The first recorded Tapboard instrument was devised by former It BitesIt Bites
It Bites are an English progressive rock and pop fusion band, formed in Egremont, Cumbria, England in 1982 and best known for their 1986 single "Calling All The Heroes", which gained them a Top 10 UK Singles Chart hit...
guitarist Francis Dunnery
Francis Dunnery
Francis Dunnery is an English musician, singer-songwriter, record producer and record label owner. He is best known as a solo performer , and for fronting the original lineup of the band It Bites between 1982 and 1990 .Dunnery served as a sideman and...
between 1988 and 1989. While recording demos for It Bites, Dunnery developed a two-handed tapping technique by laying his electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
on his lap and "idly tapping" on the fretboard with both hands, drawing on his additional skills as a drummer. Although not previously enamoured of tapping-style guitar playing, Dunnery was interested enough in his discovery to continue with his approach. He collaborated with Dave Farmiloe (chief repair technician at Arbiter Guitars, who were at the time the UK distributors for Fender Guitars) in order to develop an instrument for the technique. Initial suggestions for the design included "a sphere with strings on", but Farmiloe eventually came up with the less unusual final design.
Design
The Tapboard consists of a single piece of mahogany upon which are mounted two standard guitar necks glued flush together, side-by-side. Both of the necks' fretboards are deeply scalloped to aid control of note articulation. There are twelve strings (with twenty-four machine heads available), all with an extremely low action and apparently "reverse strung". The Tapboard features two sets of pickups (one of which is apparently taken from a Hohner ClavinetClavinet
A Clavinet is an electrically amplified keyboard instrument manufactured by the Hohner company. It is essentially an electronically amplified clavichord, analogous to an electric guitar. Its distinctive bright staccato sound has appeared particularly in funk, disco, rock, and reggae songs.Various...
previously owned by The Boomtown Rats
The Boomtown Rats
The Boomtown Rats were an Irish punk rock band that had a series of Irish and UK hits between 1977 and 1985. They were led by vocalist Bob Geldof.-Biography:All six members were originally from Dún Laoghaire, Ireland...
) mounted in a substance which appears similar to "Blackpool rock
Rock (confectionery)
Rock is a type of hard stick-shaped boiled sugar confectionery most usually flavoured with peppermint or spearmint. It is commonly sold at tourist resorts in the UK ; in Ireland in seaside towns such as Bray and Strandhill; in Gibraltar; in Denmark in towns such as Løkken and Ebeltoft; and in...
."
The instrument is designed to be played on the lap, on a table or on a table-style stand, in much the same position as a pedal steel
Pedal steel guitar
The pedal steel guitar is a type of electric guitar that uses a metal bar to "fret" or shorten the length of the strings, rather than fingers on strings as with a conventional guitar. Unlike other types of steel guitar, it also uses pedals and knee levers to affect the pitch, hence the name "pedal"...
or lap steel guitar
Lap steel guitar
The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, an instrument derived from and similar to the guitar. The player changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings instead of by pressing strings against the fingerboard....
. The playing style involves the use of all ten fingers (and thumbs) in a vaguely pianistic style, with the resulting sound being similar to that of a Chapman Stick
Chapman Stick
The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and has been used on music recordings to play bass lines, melody lines, chords or textures...
. Dunnery has commented "it's a very rhythmic instrument. And you can always see exactly what you're doing, you can work the patterns out. The things you do are totally different from what you can do on a guitar. You can hit two notes together at either end of the fretboard, you can stagger notes, like you're playing a piano, and play 'impossible' scales.”
The Tapboard is also infamous for featuring a chrome shower hose (which travels from one end of the instrument to the other) with an egg-timer at one end. Both of these initially appeared to have been added as a joke and for decoration, reflecting the eccentric nature of the instrument and Dunnery's ambivalent relationship with the more ludicrous aspects of rock performance. (Dunnery fostered this impression by joking that the feature was added "to see how fast I'm going - eight thousand notes in the time it takes to boil an egg"). However, in 2009 Farmiloe revealed that the shower hose "actually provided the solution for cable routing, some electrical shielding and the ability to mess with the wiring without taking the thing apart", although he did confess that "the egg timer was added last to help Francis boil a perfect egg for an It Bites breakfast!"
Use
The Tapboard was used on several It Bites tours from 1989 to 1990, and made an appearance at the It Bites convention in London in 1990. On record it was used on It Bites' Eat Me In St Louis album in 1989 (on the outro for "Leaving Without You" and the instrumental "Charley"), and on two single B-sides during the same period ("Having A Good Day" and "Reprise").The Tapboard was never produced commercially and was not used for subsequent Dunnery recordings and concerts, following Dunnery's journey towards simpler composition and playing styles. Dunnery still possesses the instrument, and claimed to have been using it while recording his 2005 album The Gulley Flats Boys (although there is no aural evidence of its use on the final release). Some fans claim that the Tapboard can be heard being used on the song "I'm In Love" (from Dunnery's 2001 album Man).
Dunnery began using the Tapboard again as a live instrument on his 2009 New Progressives tour, commenting "I don't think I ever fully utilized the true potential of the instrument, so I'm having another go twenty years later. I'm going to break the guitar land speed record and will be performing some of the Tapboard classics as well as some new material!" During the tour, he played a version of the 1989 It Bites track "Charley", which he also re-recorded for his 2009 album It's a Whole New World Out There.
Szendofi Tapboard
Another Tapboard instrument is played by Hungarian progressive rockProgressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
/jazz-fusion bassist Balazs Szendofi (Regina Rostás Quintet, Mindflowers, The Piccolo Inn, The Holdudvar, The Self-Searching System and others). During his time with Mindflower, Szendofi sometimes played a “Szendofi 12-string Grand Tapboard”, which he describes as a “custom creation” designed by his own father Attila Szendofi. The instrument is also sometimes referred to as the "Xu Tap Thing 12". Szendofi’s Tapboard playing can be heard on Mindflowers’ Nuances album (2005). It’s not known whether there is any connection between the Szendofi and Dunnery Tapboards.
External links
- "It Types" (feature on Francis Dunnery and the Tapboard in Making Music)
- "Tapping A New Talent" (feature on Francis Dunnery and the Tapboard in Sounds by Julian Colbeck.
- YouTube video of Francis Dunnery playing Reprise on the Tapboard (originally filmed at the It Bites Convention 1990 (poor quality footage).