I have one more thought I'd like to share with everybody (and thanks for all your suggestions, by the way):

The meaning of a word is determined by how it is used.

We can pull apart words and look at their origins and taxonomy, but in the end the name that wins out is the one that most people end up using, for whatever reason. And that's fine.

For instance, that much-maligned term "touchstyle" may one day be the correct descriptor for two-handed fretboard tapping, regardless of how one's right hand is oriented. No one person or committee of dictionary writers will decree the utility of "touchstyle" on any specific date. If most people use it to talk about tapping in the general vein of Free Hands, that's what it will come to mean, because that's how language works. It doesn't matter if "touchstyle" was originally developed to market Warr Guitars or whatever, just as it doesn't matter that Scotch tape got its name due to its poor quality (it didn't stick very well to anything, and if not for the auto body painting industry it probably would never have caught on).

It is needlessly pedantic to correct someone who asks for a Kleenex when they sneeze, and I think the same is true of the fervor caused by any utterance of "touchstyle." If someone were to say they play touchstyle guitar on their Epiphone SG, every person on this forum would know exactly what was meant. Nobody would be so confused about whether his fingers were parallel or perpendicular to the strings that they couldn't parse what's being conveyed.

So in the end, if none of our good ideas for instrument classifications catch on and everybody calls these things touch guitars, that'll be what we're stuck with whether we like it or not.

Why would you assume that everyone would call them "touch" guitars? It's not a very descriptive term. You can touch anything. All instruments are touched. And of course... The Stick is not a guitar.

Since I'm clearly the "pedantic one" I'll be happy to respond (since it's so clearly my nature). For something to be accepted and for it to be correct are two different things. If I were really pedantic, I'd be writing to newspapers every time I see them use the word "decimate".

Touchstyle is something else.

Words carry their past with them, even those that were only invented 17 years ago. All creative language (including advertising) relies on this, so I would say I don't buy the idea that the meaning of a word is determined simply by how it's used. These days so much of our language has been politicized, so I see nothing wrong with identifying a political term masquerading as a musical one, which is clearly the case here.

Ask members of the Democratic Party, for example if they like being called members of the "Democrat" Party. Detractors want to argue that they are not "democratic", so they call them something else. That's manipulation of the language to a political end.

The reality is this. A few of people who make and market tapping instruments have gone out of their way for over 15 years to rename the method they learned directly from Emmett Chapman "touchstyle", and also to call all of these instruments, the Stick included, "touchstyle instruments".

Most of all the internet content you find that uses the term was generated by them and their employees. And even though the so-called "Father of touchstyle" was a student of someone else, namely DeArmond - and the progeny in question was named the Touch System. They don't tell you that that's not the way they play, and that they in fact, play like Emmett. They also claim that the Touch Guitar, as invented by Bunker, is somehow a progenitor of their instruments, and of The Stick as well.

Since none of this context is true, I can't really see why anyone without a commercial or political agenda would knowingly use the term. Of course, if you can get enough people to unknowingly use it, then that's the payoff. Chapman, who actually started what they do, then becomes a tangent of a broader movement. Fait accompli.

Touchstyle has earned whatever scorn it gets through a decade and a half of historical revisionism and cynical marketing tactics.

The guitarist in your above example could call what he does "touchstyle" and maybe a few hundred people would know what he's talking about.

If he calls it "two-handed tapping" tens of thousands of people will now what he is talking about, including all of the people who might also call it touchstyle.

So I suggest you might look at it this way:
The surest way to make sure you are marginalized is to marginalize yourself.

I'd rather present the truest and broadest picture of this amazing way of making music, so I will never be "down" with "touchstyle" because it is neither true nor broad.

Funny thread.
That being said I vote for tap guitar and tapper for short. Although it's not a guitar, for me it's quite close.
Fretboard tapping instrument? The TapLader the ZenTapper and the Arpejii do not have fretboard in the traditional sense. And I imagine the following scenario:
X: What instrument do you play?
me: A Fretboard tapping instrument, FTI for short.
Since I don't have mine at hand to show to X the next thing will be:
X (with a puzzled look): What do you mean by Fretboard tapping instrument?
me: Oh, it's like a guitar but you tap the strings against the frets instead of plucking / strumming them.

I found that a reference to a guitar is the easiest way to explain it: it has strings, tuners, frets (most of the time), pickups. The sound is quite similar to an electric / acoustic guitar. It's polyphonic and contrapunctual like a guitar; I disagree here with MadMonk and I'm sure that most classical guitar / luthe players will be on my side
I like to keep things simple

Cheers, Daniel.

I think at the end, it comes down to this:

-Do you consider it a guitar? Yes? Then you have to have a name to differentiate the style of play from regular guitar (Ie, slide, lap steel, fingerstyle, Freehands/touch style/8 finger tapping/whatever you decide you want to call it, etc.)

-Do you not consider it a guitar? If no, then the method really doesn't necessarily need a name. What does a drummer do? He drums, or plays drums. What does a piano player do? He plays piano. They don't have a name for the method -- they just play the instrument. What does a stickist do? He sticks.
(Sure, there's the Suzuki method of violin, etc. But the end result of someone who does the Suzuki method or any other method book, as long as they have a good teacher and dedication is the same end result.) .

-Is it a new type of instrument? If it is, consider the family name of it (Does a Warr Guitar fit in the "Stick" family? The construction is different, but its played the same. If you can play a stick ,you can play a Warr. Example: Trey Gunn, Randy Strom, etc.). Then you just say "I play X instrument. I'm an X-ist".

Interesting. I think you've hit on something here.

I mean ... it's not often you find yourself in a position where you're playing something new. The last new instrument prior to the Stick was probably the saxophone and you don't meet too many sax players who tell someone they play sax only to have them turn around and ask "what's that?" Everybody just knows. But what if they didn't? "Ummmm ... it's a woodwind." Ok. "It's a single reed". Ok. "Ummmm .... it's like a clarinet but curved and gold." Bam! There is the comparison draw ... done to provide a frame of reference. The pure sax players might jump up and down and yell "but it's not a clarinet" and they'd be correct. But to provide the frame of reference, the comparison got the job done.

Let's look at more recent times though. Prior to the 60s/70s, bands had pianists or piano players. Suddenly the synthesizer is big news. It's still the familiar black and white keys but it's really not a piano. So suddenly there are bands all over the place with players listed as "keyboardists" or "keyboard players".

Are we "fretboard players"? It sounds kind of wierd. But if you stop to think about it, anything you come up with will likely sound a little wierd until it becomes part of the language.

My biggest problem with "touch" (aside from everything else) is that I just think it's lame.

X-ist is ok, but we still need to find what X is You are not a fenderist or a gibsonist, you are a guitarrist, so stickist is not good here.


I like the "touch" thing, maybe due to spanish (one of my mother tongues) where you "touch" an instrument instead of playing it ("tocar la guitarra"). It gives me the feeling that an instrument is a dead piece of hardware until somebody physically interacts with it. Same goes for portuguese too.
Following the same disgression, I like the "play" thing (in english and french) because it conveys that sense of fun and enjoyment. I also like very much the "sound" thing (as in italian "sonare") because it's really explicit, you are making the instrument sound; it shows both the interaction and the result.

Anyway back to the topic I Stick with the guitar association in tap guitar; pun intended


Cheers, Daniel.

Like i said right before the part you quoted -- you have to figure out what to call it.

TAPOCORD

related to the word tapotment

Tapotement is a specific technique used in Swedish massage. It is a rhythmic percussion, most frequently administered with...the tips of the fingers...The name of the stroke is taken from the French word "Tapoter", meaning to tap or to drum.

Seems like the correct termonology.

Tapocordist.

Tapocord- Any instrument designed to played by tapping a string or cord against a ridge or surface.

Kinda reminds of the goat-headed female figured Baphomet, as well. Metal \m/