New Technique of the Week – Double Hand Thumb Tapping with Zac Tiessen

Let’s face it – the guitar has been around a long ass time, and most of the things you can do with one have been discovered. But human creativity knows no bounds, and now and then somebody thinks of a new and wacky way to play the notes on the guitar.

Zac Tiessen is a young guitarist from Ontario, Canada, with those spider fingers that you wish you could go back in time and be born with. He is known primarily for a series of Animals as Leaders thumping covers, but he has released an EP of original tunes entitled Courage. One of these songs, “TSU”, features a technique that Zac calls “double hand thumb tapping”. I think the word “hand” in that phrase might be redundant, since you’ve only got two thumbs and they’re both attached to your hands, but you get the drift – he utilizes both his opposables on the fretboard.

He was recently featured by Guitar World for this technique, so there must be something to it. Peep it at around 2:00 in the video below.