Tapping: what is this technique called, where to learn it?

[sunnyboy]

As a huge fan of unique playing styles like "tapping" (ala Andy McKee, Erik Mongrain...) I'm usually working on mastering some of these types of pieces. I came across this guy playing a beautiful piece of music (link below) and realized that some of the percussive sound I'm hearing is coming from a thumb ring being used on the neck of the guitar. First, what is this technique called, does anyone know of links to other such pieces or tutorials of songs like this, and Second, will this damage the neck of my guitar?

[David Soltany]

Hi Sunnyboy !
Any hits on your guitar slowly damage your guitar, just look at Tommy Emmanuel or recently Jon Gomm to realize how wounded their guitars are
About this video, he could have use the side of the guitar to reach the rimshot, but the trick is nice ! plus, with a ring the sound is sharper.
There is no name for this percussive hit, it's part of the percussive acoustic style, you can basically hit everywhere you want as long as it gives you what you're looking for (in this case, he doesn't have to reach the sides so he can spare precious time and last a little longer on tap chords)
You have other examples like Antoine Dufour's song These moments :



He's hitting with the nail to create a kind of high pitch rimshot.

[slash08]

wow! these guys are really good with tapping! I would love to learn this someday!

[uiowagreeks]

hmm... It seems tapping is an interesting thing to learn....