Artificial/Pinch Harmonics?

Post Reply New Topic

Hi,
I play the electric guitar and I have watched countless videos on youtube on how to do Artificial Harmonics on a guitar and all the videos show are someone demonstrating it and not explaining the technique enough (well to me at least) and I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips on how to do this or point me in the right direction of a video that could perhaps explain the technique properly.

Any help would be most appreciated

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JqNE4N_XsY[/youtube]

There are a two main types of harmonics, these being natural and artificial, which is composed of pinched, tapped, touch, harped and muted. They are all roughly the same thing though, just accomplished differently.

Pinch harmonics are really very cool and can add a lot of diversity to one's playing. It takes a bit of practice, and your thumb also has to develop callus on the side (yep). If you do finger style guitar already you'll probably already have a head start. It requires you hold your pick a certain way, most importantly. I also recommend only medium to heavy picks, in terms of thickness, as they have more surface area and seem to make more pronounced harmonics. They're also way better for fast playing and most rock/metal. But I digress.

Pinching your thumb and index finger together in an 'a-okay!' gesture, basically the normal way of holding a pick. The difference is you have to cover most of the pick, leaving just a small point sticking out. You have to place the pick so that it is sticking out roughly the same amount as a small amount of the flesh of your thumb behind it. So when you down-pick, the pick sounds the note, and then your thumb's 'meat' slightly mutes it so that the harmonic sounds. It should look something like this:

The next thing to master is where on the string the harmonics will work. Most notes you can do pinch harmonics with, but the harmonics work in octaves, so you must move your picking hand closer to the bridge the closer the notes you fret get to the 12th fret. On my two guitars, the 'sweet' spots are slightly different, but in a general area that applies to most guitars. For notes between frets 1 & 7, I pick the notes (while using the pinch setup) close to the fretboard, near fret 24 on my guitar to the area where the neck pickup begins. 7 through 18 I find work best between the two pickups, and 18 through 24 don't have great harmonics, but you can get them over the bridge pickup with enough gain. Using vibrato also really makes it sound cool, and Zakk Wylde in that video is well known for this. It is actually really easy though. Hope this helps! If you're curious about the other types of harmonics I can describe them too

Artificial Harmonics, think of playing them as if you're not completely "fretting" a note. Take the D string's 12th fret, and gently put your finger on the string. Don't push the string down to the fretboard as if you were going to normally hit the note, instead, just leave your finger on the string, over that fret. Then pluck the string. It should sound more "ringing" or more higher-pitched. On all the strings, the best frets to use are the 5th, 7th, and 12th. The 3rd and 9th can be somewhat difficult. Work around with it.

Pinch Harmonics, look up a few lessons on youtube and other lessons elsewhere, and aside from that, my advice is to just "work around with it", until you find out how to do it best for yourself, since there's more than one way to get a pinch harmonic right. They're hard to explain. I took forever figuring out how to get it working, it just takes time.

Useful techniques, but personally I think Artificial Harmonics are more important. They sound good with and without distortion. Pinch harmonics might sound good with distortion. They certainly add expression into soloing, but it can also be easily to over-use them (like Zakk Wylde admits intentionally doing so). Artificial Harmonics are more useful, in my opinion, though learning how to do both can't hurt.