Make Your Guitar Sing With Harmonics at Guitar Effects Secrets

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Make Your Guitar Sing With Harmonics

By andy | July 31, 2007

You don’t need a harp or learn to play one if you want to achieve that distinctive bell-like tone you just heard on your record. And by the way, it isn’t a harp you are hearing!(unless it’s stated of course…) In this post, get exposed to guitar harmonics and soon you be well on your way to creating harp notes right out of your guitar!

Natural Harmonics

Basically, there is natural harmonics on every fret on every string. But the harmonic at the twelfth fret is the easiest to find and the most basic to begin with if you are new to harmonics. Next will be the 5th and 7th fret.

Place your finger directly over the twelfth fret wire of any string on your guitar (a bass guitar is easy to start off with), but don’t press down as you normally would if you were fretting a note. As soon as you pluck the note with your picking hand, lift your finger off of the string. You should hear a bell like ring.

Artificial Harmonics (also "Koto Technique" and "Harp Harmonic")

An artificial harmonic is produced by lightly the string with the picking hand at the twelfth fret above the fretted note. You can plucked the string using your thumb or with a pick, depending on your preference.

When using harp harmonics to play chord, the plucking hand will outline that chord shape (C major for example) twelve frets higher while the fretting hand will provide the chord shape.

Tap Harmonics

Popularised by Eddie Van Halen, it is simple to apply the technique of tap harmonic in your playing. To perform a tap harmonic, strum a note just as you regularly would. As it is ringing, count 12 frets down from the played note and just barely tap it above the fret wire. Be gentle here to make the tap harmonic sounding it’s best. Just a slight tap that barely touches it will do. Touching the string too much or too hard will cause it to stop all together.

Harmonic Notes

The easy part about using the twelfth fret harmonic is that its the same note as the string.

12th fret on the "High E" string gives you an "E"
12th fret on the "A" string gives you an "A"

However, it gets tricky If you’re playing harmonics on other frets. You would have to figure out the notes by yourselves. Here’s some more to help you getting started: