Guitar Harmonics are created by getting the guitar string to vibrate in such a way as to make certain overtones stand out much louder than others.
Guitarists tend to differentiate between “natural” and “artificial” harmonics. Natural harmonics are made by open strings. Artificial harmonics are generally created on fretted notes.
Lets start by listening to some…
Playing Harmonics
The easiest string to play harmonics on is the bottom E, just as in my example above, and start on the easiest harmonic to play, on the 12th fret.
Find the 12th fret and gently rest your finger on the string – you’re not going to fret it, so don’t press it down, just rest your finger on it. Now pluck the string and immediately lift your finger off it. The note should ring through, just like the example above.
Compare playing the open string, with playing it when your finger touching the string on the 12th fret. Those are the first 2 notes.
The next 3 harmonics can be found over the 7th, 5th and 4th frets. Don’t be too concerned if you find these harder to play.
The final 3 in my example are even more tricky, and they don’t directly line up with any frets at all.
The first is just after fret 3. Lets call it 3 1/4, then 2 2/3 and finally we have the last one at fret 2 1/3.
These last 3 can be really hard to play, especially on the thinner strings, but keep persevering and you’ll get it.
Harmonic Intervals and Overtones
So lets talk about the notes and intervals that are being created here. Each harmonic note, being played above, is an overtone above the open string note.
So if we look at the bottom E string we have.
12th fret = First Overtone = E note an octave above. 7th fret = Second Overtone = B note an octave above. 5th fret = Third Overtone = E note two octaves above. 4th fret = Forth Overtone = G# note, two octaves above. 3 1/4th fret = Fifth Overtone = B note two octaves above. 2 2/3rd fret = Sixth Overtone = D note two octaves above. 2 1/3rd fret = Seventh Overtone = E note three octaves above.
…Nearly
Unfortunately the notes I’ve mentioned are not always identical to the fretted notes, but I’ll let you research Equal Temperament and Commas in Music elsewhere.
Tuning the Guitar Using Harmonics
The first thing we need to do is to get one string in tune. Generally speaking you should be able to find a 440Hz “A” tone. For example, if I go to Metronome Online I can get a 440Hz tone from that.
A440 is the note produced by playing the A string Harmonic over the 5th fret. So lets assume that we have used this to tune the A string.
Next I move on to the bottom E string.
Play the Harmonic on the 5th fret of the E string the the 7th fret of the A string at the same time. If you listen to the note do you get a single pitch or are they slightly different? If you listen very closely does the note “wobble”? Let me record an example.
In this example I played both harmonics then detuned the E string, then brought it back into pitch again. That “wobble” between the notes are called Beats. Listen for them, they’re really obvious with distortion on, but you can hear them even on acoustic guitars. As the notes get closer into tune, the slower the Beats get until they stop completely.
Next, for the D string, we play the A string 5th fret, and D string 7th fret.
The G string follows the same pattern, 5th fret harmonic on the D string is the 7th fret on the G string.
For the B string, we have a different method. Play the 7th fret harmonic on the bottom E string, and the open B string.
Finally we do the top E by the 5th fret of the B string and the 7th Fret of the E string.
Lets hear all of that…
(Actually I think I’m a little out, but its good enough for the example).
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