[mtmikey]

david,

are you talking about what don does when he's playing a line and slaps the strings above the soundhole on 2/4 simultaneously with his right hand?

if yes, basically i think the deal is that he doesn't always slap all strings when he does this, so he's able to keep lines going. selectively slapping. you can use the backside of your fingers, side of your hand, whatever it takes to keep things going with the rest of the digits.

the other thing don does is slap the fretboard with his left hand while playing lines with his right hand. i saw him do this on "this dragon won't sleep" and shamelessly ripped off the technique on a tune called "beverly jane" on my first record.

you can really get a lot going by slapping both spots... fretboard with left hand and right hand above the soundhole.

he also beats the crap out of the sides of the guitar. i've ripped that off too. it was kinda funny to see how many folks were doing this stuff at the cdn guitar festival. it was sort of donfest... i gave up years ago trying to play like him but have absorbed a lot of his stuff organically.

the last thing that don does that i'll mention - and i've never really tried to pick much up - is that he makes extensive use of a thumbpick. specifically he does a lot of strumming and picking with the thumb... in addition to getting all of the other stuff going with the other fingers. i was chatting with him and he had recently broken a nail at a gig with pierre bensusan and had done a repair. he was like, "sucks when i break one. kinda hard. because what i play is kinda dense, ya know?"

yeah. i know.

don has a number of vids out. it's helpful just to see him do this stuff. his new live performance dvd is cool. check em?

hope this helps. you've said "tapping" and i've more or less described "slapping." don does tap quite a bit too... but i'm remembering less tapping on 2/4 than slapping on 2/4... he does do a lot of slap harmonics, but i suspect you know how that's accomplished...

thinking of a particular tune?