This is the second part of “Guitar Harmonics – A Short Introduction“.
In the post about Natural Harmonics, I mentioned that a harmonic is basically a sounding of the natural overtones of the string in the OPEN position.
That is where we can subject our own modifications to the string and effectively change the position and thus vibrating frequency of these overtones.
Important Note – Acoustic or Electric Guitar
Stylistic Considerations
First and foremost, not everyone would want to use artificial harmonics.
To many styles it would simply be considered dissonance, since it is a single high pitched sound in the midst of a bunch of other notes. Stylistically, this technique is most often used by metal guitarists and various instrumentalists to create that guitar “scream”. Eddie Van Halen can probably be credited for making use of the pinch harmonic, which is an artificial harmonic combined with a vibrato to get a very ‘metal’ and ‘screechy’ sound.
Hence, other players may never use or use this technique so infrequently that they are better off focusing on other techniques.
Ultimately, this rules out most, if not all acoustic guitar players.
Practical Considerations
However, the more important concern is the practical aspects of sounding a harmonic.
By selectively sounding the overtones of a vibrating string, we already lose some of the energy of that string. This results in a reduced volume of the sounded note.
By further artificially shortening the string as is in an artificial harmonic, we lose even more energy, and hence more volume.
Without a suitable pickup, (one that is sensitive to these overtones) the harmonic will ultimately be so soft that it cannot be heard. This again rules out its use by acoustic guitars. One thing to note is that even semi-acoustic guitars (acoustic guitars with a pickup) may not be totally suitable because the natural resonance of the guitars tends to cause some destructive interaction of these overtones and may or may not allow them to be sounded.
This problem is largely avoided with an electric guitar, but may also be subjected to pickup quality.
Pickups
With regards to the pickups, you will find that some pickups will pick up artificial harmonics better than others.
Most notably, the double humbucker variety like the ones I have tend to use some form of noise cancellation mechanism which may cancel out these overtones. Even then, the specifics of the pickups need to be known.
With my guitar, my upper pickup (the ones closer to the fretboard) are designed as a ‘rhythm’ pickup, and will not pick up harmonics well. However, my other pickup, which happens to have less sustain and has a sharper sound, tends to do well with harmonics.
Hence, when I want to use harmonics, I will solely use the lower pickup.
With your own guitar, you will need to experiment to see which pickup gives you the best harmonic sound. Very often, if you have more than one pickup (as is with most guitars), each one is likely to give you a slightly different sound for the same harmonic.
I will admit that with some cheap electric guitars like the ones I used when I started out, identical stock pickups were used which could not pick up these artificial harmonics very well at all.
The point I want to make is: Sometimes, the inability to perform artificial harmonics can be an equipment issue which you cannot solve with good playing technique. This is especially so if you own a cheap guitar (eg: a Starter set)
Alright, now that the theory is all covered, its time to move on to the mechanics of artificial harmonics and ultimately, how to do them.
The Mechanics
In an artificial harmonic, what the player does is basically “artificially” shorten the string with the picking hand. This is done by first, fretting a certain area on the fretboard, and then picking at the correct location with the picking hand, with the thumb gently scraping or touching the string itself, thereby shortening the string by a certain amount, and thus causing a new vibration frequency which is heard as a high pitch sound.
A really good video about artificial harmonics, how they sound, and how to do them can be found on youtube: Beginning Pinch Harmonic Lesson
This is a great primer, but it still leaves some areas pretty vague. Most notably, where do you touch the string with the right hand and how do you touch it. I will try to explain that here, with the help of a picture:
Let me explain this picture. It is obviously a picture of the pickup area on my guitar. Recall that harmonics are basically done by cutting the string at specific points. These points typically do not vary much for the given guitar. For my guitar, the coloured lines across represents the area that my right (picking hand) hand thumb touches the string to ‘cut’ it and give an artificial harmonic.
This area changes depending on which fret I’m fretting. Typically, the area which you need to touch with the picking hand moves downward (in the picture) as you fret higher and higher notes. It then can be said to ‘reset’ itself. In the case of my guitar, this was at the 8 semitone mark. Hence if I want to create a harmonic on the 9th fret and then on the 17th fret, it will correspond to the same place I touch with my right thumb.
If I wanted a harmonic on the 10th fret, I would simply move slightly higher than the 9th fret position.
Do note, that these positions are solely for my guitar. Your guitar will have its own due to the difference in construction, etc. But the important thing to note is that they are consistent (unless you fiddle around with things like string clearance, truss rod tension, etc).
Finally, here is a video of some differences between natural and artificial harmonics compared to regular playing. I tend to like to practice technique without an amplifier for the reason that you hear the ‘true’ sound of the guitar. In this case, you will have to hit the harmonic spot on for you to even hear it properly, and hence it is my version of “perfect practice”.
Possible Cues
As with most guitar skills, there should be certain cues by which allow you to achieve smooth technique. In a sense, it is about not thinking about anything else but that single cue.
One of the good cues which arguably most people will use is to simply think of rotating the wrist outwards (ie: away from the guitar) while simultaneously moving down.
So you would simply position the pick under the strings, and then pick it in outwards and downwards.
Another possible cue is to simply think of picking downwards “harder” with “more force”. For some reason this seems to work for some people.
Whatever your cue, you should have one to consistently remind yourself of the mechanism of picking. It’s a way to let your body know what to do, even if your mind does not really know the specific actions to take.
Closing
Last and certainly not least, the most important thing is practice.
Set up your cues, and keep drilling them until you can simply recall that single cue and pull of an artificial harmonic.
Get to Guitaring!
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