Copyright Douglas Niedt. All Rights Reserved. This article may be reprinted, but please be considerate and give credit to Douglas Niedt.

PART ONE: Natural Harmonics

This comprehensive video tech tip on harmonics runs over 17 minutes. Watch the entire video.

If you want to review any particular topic, refer to the chapter list below. Simply drag your mouse along the video time line to forward or rewind to any point.

You may download the video here.

For full-screen, click the icon in bottom right-hand corner.

Chapter Topics:

1. Doug plays an example of cascading harmonics: 00:06 (almost at beginning)


2. General overview of natural harmonics. Fret locations of the most commonly played harmonics: 00:47


3. The basics of how to play a natural harmonic: 1:50


4. Which left-hand fingers to use. What part of the finger to use: 3:50


5. Position of the left-hand thumb: 5:30


6. Where along the string-length to pluck the string with the right hand: 6:07


7. Which fingers on the right hand to use to pluck natural harmonics: 7:25


8. Natural harmonics can be played rest stroke or free stroke: 8:23


9. How to choose right-hand fingering for natural harmonics: 9:51


10. Left-hand fingering on natural harmonics: 11:06


11. The location of harmonics at the 4th and 9th frets: 13:21


12. The location of harmonics at the 3rd fret: 14:07


13. The harmonics at the 4th and 9th frets are not in tune with the rest of the guitar: 14:44


14. Playing chords in natural harmonics: 15:47


15. How to vibrato natural harmonics: 16:26

Quick Text Summary on How to Play Clear Natural Harmonics

There are different types of harmonics. There are natural harmonics, right hand harmonics, artificial harmonics, and cascading harmonics.

First, let’s talk about natural harmonics. Natural harmonics, which are the most commonly used, are produced by lightly touching a string at what is called a nodal point. The most common nodal points on the guitar are those for the natural guitar harmonics at the 12th fret, 7th fret, 19th fret, and 5th fret.

There are also nodal points at the 4th and 9th frets which produce the same pitch. And, there is a nodal point at the third fret. So, those are your most commonly used harmonics. And actually, the third fret is not used very often. The fourth fret and ninth frets are used once in a while. The most common harmonics are certainly the 12th fret harmonics, seventh fret harmonics, and the fifth fret harmonics.

Let’s look at how to produce a good, clear natural harmonic. To play a normal note, when you press the string down, you press it down, of course, behind the fret wire with firm pressure.

But to play natural harmonics at the 5th, 7th, 12th, and 19th frets, you touch the string right above the fret wire. Not behind the fret, but right above the fret. Use light pressure. If you press too hard, you're going to mute the harmonics. It's not going to come out as clearly. If you use too light or little pressure, then you hear some of the main note, the open E or open sixth string, which you don't want.

So, to play a clear harmonic at the 5th, 7th, 12th, and 19th frets, use light but firm pressure, directly above the fret. Press the string down maybe a millimeter or two. Not very much.

However, and this is important, the harmonics at the fourth fret and the ninth fret, which are the identical pitch, are not found right above the fret wire. Instead, they're behind the fret wire.

If you try to play the natural harmonics at the 3rd, 4th, and 9th frets like you would at the 5th fret, 7th fret, and 12th frets, the harmonic will not be clear. It won’t come out. So, for the harmonics at the 4th and 9th frets, place the fingers a little behind the fret wire.

The harmonics at the 3rd fret are different. Instead of being right above the fret wire or behind the fret wire, they're in front of the fret wire. You don't use third fret harmonics very often, but when you do, and you want them to be clear, that’s how you do it. Touch the string a few millimeters in front of the 3rd fret.

Normally, when you pluck the strings, you play close to the sound hole. But if you want clear, good-sounding natural harmonics, pluck a few inches from the bridge. Normally, we use our thumb to play natural harmonics on the bass strings (the wound strings),and use the fingers to pluck natural harmonics on the treble strings. Those are the basics to playing a clear natural harmonic. Touch the string lightly directly above the fret wire, and after you pluck the string, lift the finger off the string. Be sure to pluck the string a few inches from the bridge.

Remember, if you leave the finger on the string too long, you're going to mute the nice harmonic you just produced. It's not going to ring freely. So pluck and then lift. The harmonics can be played with any of the left hand fingers. First finger. Second finger. Third finger. Fourth finger. Use whichever finger gives you the best sound.

I find that most people have a certain finger that seems to have the most sensitive touch. And since harmonics require a sensitive touch, use that finger. For me, I tend to prefer my third finger. It's just less calloused than the others, so I can feel the surface of the string a little bit better than I can with, say, the first finger.

To get a clear harmonic, what part of the left-hand finger do you use? Usually, you do not want to touch the string with the very tip of the finger. It tends to be calloused, so it is less sensitive to touch. To get a clear harmonic, it is best to use more of the side of the finger, the fleshy part of the finger on the side, rather than the very tip. The side of the finger will produce a very good sound. But experiment with that yourself and see what works, what sounds best for you. Use the finger that's most sensitive, has the most sensitive touch, and then experiment with whether whether to use the tip of the finger, which is going to be more calloused, or whether to use the side of the finger, which is going to be a softer surface.

When you play natural harmonics, it is very important to keep the thumb on the neck at all times. You have to remember, natural harmonics require a very sensitive, accurate, precise touch. If you're nervous, if you're a little shaky, the thumb helps stabilize your hand.

If you take the thumb off of the neck, you're much shakier. So keep the thumb on there to stabilize the hand at all times.

On the right hand, it's important on natural harmonics to always pluck about halfway between the sound hole and the bridge. Don't play where you normally play. You need to move the hand down towards the bridge a little bit. Your natural harmonics will sound much clearer.

So again. Natural harmonics pluck down close to the bridge, about halfway between the sound hole and the bridge. That helps to get clear natural harmonics.

Usually, on natural harmonics, we use the thumb to play the harmonics on the bass strings, the wound strings. and fingers to play the treble strings. You can use your thumb to play a harmonic on a treble string, but it has an odd percussive effect to it. You can decrease that a little bit by playing on top of the string, almost like a rest stroke.

But still, it's not as clean a sound as using the fingers to pluck the trebles. Likewise, you can use your fingers to play, to pluck a bass string harmonic, but the fingernails will produce a scratchy tone. The thumb produces a cleaner sound when playing the wound bass strings.

So, although there are exceptions, in general, pluck natural harmonics with the thumb for the bass strings and the fingers for the treble strings. Now, you can use rest stroke or free stroke whether you're using your fingers or thumb to play harmonics. You will have to experiment with whatever passage you're playing and see what sounds best.

You can pluck natural harmonics with the rest stroke or free stroke. They're very close in sound. One one of the problems with playing natural harmonics with rest stroke is that if you are playing the harmonics rest stroke with the fingers, and you're playing sequential harmonics from lower strings to ascending strings, your rest stroke will stop the harmonic you just played. You may not want that. You may want the notes to ring, in which case you'd have to use free stroke.

Likewise, if you're using your thumb, rest stroke, if you're going from higher strings to lower strings, the rest stroke will cut off or mute the harmonic you just played, and you may not want that effect. You may want all the harmonics to ring together, in which case, you would want to use free stroke.

Also, there is the question of how much percussive noise you get with rest stroke versus free stroke. So it varies from player to player and passage to passage, but you also need to consider that. As far as what right-hand fingering to use, use common sense and experiment. On a slow moving passage, you can use the same finger for each note with no problem. Some people prefer to do that because it gives them a good tactile sense for each harmonic by using the same finger over and over again. They feel like their touch is more sensitive by using the same finger.

And also they say that the tone quality going from note to note stays the same if they use the same finger. But you could just as easily, uh, use arpeggio fingering. For instance, the “A” finger on the first string, “M” on the second, and “I” on the third string. The fingers fall very naturally on the strings, so that's an argument for using that type of fingering. So try both types of right-hand fingering and see what sounds best and what's easiest, most secure to play.

On left hand fingering for natural harmonics, just use common sense. Sometimes, you can use the same finger for every harmonic. But if the harmonics are in widely spaced locations, jumping around with the hand is going to lead to inaccuracy. The more stable, steadier your hand is, the better you're going to be able to do the harmonics, especially under high pressure situations. So in those situations, use a variety of fingers. Again, you don't want to jump the hand.

Now I do want to mention that the harmonics at the fourth fret (which are the same as the ninth fret) will not sound exactly in tune. You can't do anything about that. That's the nature of the instrument. If you try to change the tuning of the open string to make the harmonic sound like it is in tune, it messes up everything else. You can tweak it a little bit, but you need to take that into consideration.

Sometimes you'll play a little chord in natural harmonics for instance, the first three strings at the 12th fret. The same principles apply to get clear harmonics. Touch the strings with light pressure, pluck the strings a few inches from the bridge, and lift the left-hand finger off the strings. You just have to be sure if you're playing several strings at once, that you're exerting equal pressure on all the strings to make them come out clearly.

A fun little effect in playing natural harmonics is that you can vibrato natural harmonics if you're playing a normal fretted note with them. For instance, at the end of Choros No. 1 by Villa-Lobos, you have the 1st finger on the 5th string on the seventh fret. If you vibrato that note on the 5th string as you play the harmonics at the 12th fret, the vibrato makes the harmonics shimmer. It makes it sound like you are vibratoing the harmonics!

PART TWO: Right-Hand Harmonics and Artificial Harmonics

This detailed video tech tip on right-hand harmonics runs a little over 10 minutes. Watch the entire video. Then if you want to review any particular topic, refer to the chapter list below. Simply drag your mouse along the video time line to forward or rewind to any point.

Video #1: Right-hand harmonics:

You may download the video here.

For full-screen, click the icon in bottom right-hand corner.

Chapter Topics:

1. Doug plays an example of cascading harmonics: 00:06 (almost at beginning)


2. Overview of right-hand harmonics: 00:40


3. Right-hand position for right-hand harmonics and artificial harmonics: 02:28


4. Position of left-hand index finger 05:34


5. Which right-hand finger to use to pluck the string: 06:01


6. When to use right-hand harmonics. Example, Spanish Dance No. 5 by Enrique Granados: 06:48


7. When to use right-hand harmonics. Example, Fandanguillo by Joaquin Turina: 08:05

QUICK SUMMARY OF HOW TO PLAY RIGHT-HAND HARMONICS

Let’s examine how to play right hand harmonics. To play right-hand harmonics, we won't use the left hand at all.

Here is an example of how to play a right-hand harmonic. Touch the first string at its nodal point directly above the fret wire at the 12th fret with the RIGHT HAND index finger. Next, pluck the string with the “a” finger or thumb of the right hand with free stroke (not rest stroke). A split second after you pluck the string, lift the index finger off the string. If you lift the index finger too soon, you will hear the open string, not a harmonic. If you leave the index finger on the string too long, the harmonic will be muted or damped.

Usually we use the “a” finger to pluck harmonics that are on the treble strings, first three strings. And we use the thumb to pluck harmonics on the bass strings. If we use the “a” finger to pluck a harmonic on a wound bass string, it will tend to sound scratchy because the fingernail will scrape against the windings of the bass strings. You can pluck the string more straight on to get rid of some of the scraping noise, but it won’t sound as clean as using the thumb to pluck a wound bass string. You can use the thumb to pluck a harmonic on a treble string but usually, it won’t be as loud and may produce a percussive sound or artifact. Again, we pluck right-hand harmonics using free stroke, not rest stroke.

My example is playing a harmonic on the first string at the 12th fret. But you can play right-hand harmonics on any string at the nodal points at the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th, or 19th frets.

So, when we play a normal natural harmonic, we touch the nodal point with the left hand and pluck with the right hand. With the the right-hand harmonic technique, we touch the string with the index finger of the RIGHT HAND very lightly at its nodal point above the fret wire and also pluck with the right hand.

The right-hand position for playing right-hand harmonics is very different from a normal right-hand position. To play right-hand harmonics, keep the hand in a low position, close to the strings. The right-hand thumb will be nearly parallel to the strings. Keep the index finger straight. Don’t bend the index finger when you touch the nodal point of the string. The index finger will be straight. Keeping the index finger straight will be much more stable.

If you try to play right-hand harmonics with a normal hand position, the “a” finger or thumb will hook under the string, plucking directly upward, producing a thin, quiet sound. If you use the low hand position, the harmonic will be clearer, fuller, and louder.

The norm is to use the “a” finger to pluck a harmonic on the treble strings. But sometimes you can use the “m” finger. There is nothing really wrong with that but usually, the “a” finger is available and produces a clearer harmonic. Sometimes, you must use the pinky or little finger to play four note chords, which we'll talk about a little later when we talk about artificial harmonics.

Video #2: Artificial Harmonics, Part 1

Part 1 of this detailed video tech tip on artificial harmonics runs a little over 14 minutes. Watch the entire video. Then if you want to review any particular topic, refer to the chapter list below. Simply drag your mouse along the video time line to forward or rewind to any point.

You may download the video here.

For full-screen, click the icon in bottom right-hand corner.

Chapter Topics:

1. Doug plays an example of cascading harmonics: 00:06 (almost at beginning)


2. Overview of artificial harmonics: 00:45


3. Playing non-harmonic notes simultaneously with artificial harmonics. Example, Spanish Dance No. 5 by Enrique Granados: 03:21


4. Right-hand technique for playing non-harmonic notes simultaneously with artificial harmonics and how to practice: 04:45


5. Playing a four-note chord using the right-hand pinkie to play artificial harmonic on top of chord: 08:14


6. Example of how to play a passage containing a mix of artificial harmonics with non-harmonic accompaniment. Example, Miguel Llobet's El Testament d'Amelia: 09:04


7. Using common sense in playing artificial harmonics. Example, Andrew York's In Sorrow's Wake: 12:50

BRIEF SUMMARY OF HOW TO PLAY ARTIFICIAL HARMONICS

The artificial harmonics technique enables one to play any note as a harmonic, not just those at the 12th fret, the 7th fret, the 5th fret, the 4th fret, the 3rd fret, or the 19th fret. You can play any note as a harmonic.

To play any note as an artificial harmonic, hold the note with a left-hand finger. Next, count up the fretboard one octave or twelve frets. That fret is the nodal point. As with right-hand harmonics, lightly touch the string at the nodal point with the right-hand index finger. The nodal point will be directly above the fret wire.

Next, pluck the string with the “a” finger or thumb of the right hand with free stroke (not rest stroke). A split second after you pluck the string, lift the index finger off the string. If you lift the index finger too soon, you will hear the open string, not a harmonic. If you leave the index finger on the string too long, the artificial harmonic will be muted or damped.

Usually, we use the “a” finger to pluck artificial harmonics that are on the treble strings, first three strings. And we use the thumb to pluck artificial harmonics on the bass strings. If we use the “a” finger to pluck an artificial harmonic on a wound bass string, it will tend to sound scratchy because the fingernail will scrape against the windings of the bass strings. You can pluck the string more straight on to get rid of some of the scraping noise, but it won’t sound as clean as using the thumb to pluck a wound bass string. You can use the thumb to pluck an artificial harmonic on a treble string, but usually, it won’t be as loud and may produce a percussive sound or artifact. Again, we pluck artificial harmonics using free stroke, not rest stroke.

The right-hand position for playing artificial harmonics is very different from a normal right-hand position. To play artificial harmonics, keep the hand in a low position, close to the strings. The right-hand thumb will be nearly parallel to the strings. Keep the index finger straight. Don’t bend the index finger when you touch the nodal point of the string. The index finger will be straight. Keeping the index finger straight will be much more stable.

If you try to play artificial harmonics with a normal hand position, the “a” finger or thumb will hook under the string, plucking directly upward, producing a thin, quiet sound. If you use the low hand position, the artificial harmonic will be clearer, fuller, and louder.

The norm is to use the “a” finger to pluck an artificial harmonic on the treble strings. But sometimes, you can use the “m” finger. There is nothing really wrong with that, but usually, the “a” finger is available and produces a clearer harmonic. Sometimes, you must use the pinky or little finger to play four-note chords.

Again, you can play any single note as an artificial harmonic. But one of the wonderful things about the artificial harmonic technique is that you can play other notes along with the artificial harmonic.

For example, you can play two-note intervals playing the upper note (which is usually the melody) as an artificial harmonic. With the left hand, hold the melody note on say the first string plus a bass note on the fourth string (or an open bass string). Then, play the note on the first string as an artificial harmonic. As usual, to play the artificial harmonic, hold the note with a left-hand finger. Next, count up the fretboard on that string, one octave or twelve frets. That fret is the nodal point. As with right-hand harmonics, lightly touch the string at the nodal point with the right-hand index finger. The nodal point will be directly above the fret wire. Pluck that artificial harmonic with the “a” finger of the right hand. Pluck the bass note with the right-hand thumb at the same time. Be sure to pluck the bass note with the thumb very quietly so the melodic artificial harmonic is most prominent. So again, you are playing the upper melody note as an artificial harmonic and the lower bass note as a normal note.

Or, if we have a melody note on a string that we want to play as an artificial harmonic plus an accompaniment note on the lower (lower in pitch) adjacent string that we want to play as a normal note, we can play that accompaniment note on the lower adjacent string with the “m” finger.

Or, we can play three-note chords. We place a left-hand finger on the highest note (melody) of the chord. As usual, to play that note as an artificial harmonic, count up the fretboard on that string, one octave or twelve frets. That fret is the nodal point. Add the other left-hand fingers of the chord. As with right-hand harmonics, lightly touch the string with the melody note at the nodal point with the right-hand index finger. The nodal point will be directly above the fret wire. So, we are holding the three notes of the chord with the left hand. Then we play the upper note (usually, the upper note is the melody) as an artificial harmonic. We play the artificial harmonic with the “a” finger, the accompaniment note on the lower adjacent string with “m” as a normal note, and a bass note on the lowest string with the thumb as a normal note. We pluck all three notes simultaneously. You hear a beautiful three-note chord with the artificial harmonic on top. Remember to keep the thumb quiet.

Finally, we can play four-note chords, playing the top note, which is usually the melody, as an artificial harmonic. But the unusual thing about playing four-note chords with an artificial harmonic on top is that we have to employ the pinky or little finger to pluck the harmonic. We hold all four notes of the chord with the left hand. Depending on the chord, it may require all four fingers or only two or three fingers because some of the notes may be open strings. We want to play the note on top of the chord (the melody) as an artificial harmonic. However, because we have four strings to pluck, we don’t have the “a” finger available to pluck the artificial harmonic. We must use all five fingers! We play the lowest note with the thumb, the next higher note with the “i” finger, the next with the “m” finger, the next with the “a” finger, and finally, the artificial harmonic with the pinky or little finger.

Video #3: Artificial Harmonics, Part 2

Part 2 of this detailed video tech tip on artificial harmonics runs a little over 8 minutes. Watch the entire video. Then if you want to review any particular topic, refer to the chapter list below. Simply drag your mouse along the video time line to forward or rewind to any point.

You may download the video here.

For full-screen, click the icon in bottom right-hand corner.

Chapter Topics:

1. Strummed chord with artificial harmonic on top. Example, Claude Debussy's Girl with the Flaxen Hair: 00:08


2. How to execute strummed chord with harmonic on top: 00:47


3. How to play (and why) artificial harmonics an octave plus a fifth above fretted note: 02:37


4. How to learn and practice a passage in artificial harmonics. Example, Miguel Llobet's El Testament d'Amelia: 04:35

Coming next month: CASCADING HARMONICS and HARMONIC NOTATION