“Eddie was down in the pit watching every move I made”: Ace Frehley says his early displays of tapping prowess “probably” inspired Eddie Van Halen to develop his trademark two-hand technique

Ace Frehley and Eddie Van Halen tapping on their guitars.

Two-hand tapping is a technique that is wholly synonymous with the name Eddie Van Halen, but as the late electric guitar great himself acknowledged on numerous occasions, it wasn’t something he invented from the ground up.

Rather, Van Halen’s own interpretation of tapping derived from various sources of inspiration, which were refined and channeled into the trademark technical weapon that he used on some of his greatest feats of fretboard majesty.