Add tapped extensions to your chord work with this cool Chon-inspired hybrid technique

Instructor Juan Antonio is back with another quick-hit electric guitar lesson for us, this time tackling a “really cool and interesting technique I learned from the guys in Chon," he says. "More specifically, from their song But.”

As Antonio explains, the phrase actually utilizes two techniques that, on their own, are fairly common. “But I’ve never seen somebody applying it by putting both techniques together like this,” he says. “And it provides a really cool type of sound.”

And while both techniques are fairly simple on their own, mixing them together makes things a bit more complicated.

(Image credit: Juan Antonio)

The actual technique, Antonio explains, “consists of playing a normal chord and arpeggiating it, and then adding a little bit of tapping with your right hand à la Joe Satriani.

“Actually applying it and playing it with a specific guitar part is a little bit hard,” he says. “Especially getting it clean.”

To witness the technique in action, check out the video above, and learn the licks in the tab.

Richard Bienstock

Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.