help II

[danmarino]

whats this bout harmonics, i realise i seriously suck when it comes to theory.

 

cheers

[1boogieman]

http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=18065

 

harmonics are tones played by just touching the string (s) lightly. Easiest to do over the metal fret at 5, 7 and the easiest 12th fret. You need to be right over the fret.

Of course there's more to it and it's explained in detail in the book above.

[acousticbilly]

The above from Boogieman is absolutely correct, but I like to think about harmonics in a (slightly) different way.

Take the easiest one first - the 12th fret. As mentioned, if you touch the string lightly right over the 12th fret, a harmonic will sound. Now, you'll notice that the 12th fret is just about at the exact midpoint of the string - instead of the 12th fret, let's think of this harmonic as 1/2 the length of the vibrating string.

Having done that, let's look at the other two harmonics mentioned - 5th fret and 7th fret. Check it out.... the 7th fret is about 1/3 of the way along the string, and the 5th fret is about 1/4 of the way along the string. You can keep following the same logic and find harmonics at 1/5, 1/6, 1/7 of the string length and so on, although they do get harder to articulate as you get into the smaller fractions.

Now for the fun part - in addition to the natural harmonics we just found, there are a potentially infinite number of "artificial" harmonics that can be found on the neck as well. Let's say you are playing a note on the 5th fret of a given string - notice that the vibrating portion of the string is now limited to the area from the 5th fret to the bridge. If you put a finger halfway along this vibrating portion (figure about the 19th fret), you will find yet another harmonic (again, follow the same logic and find the harmonics at 1/3 the length of the vibrating part of the string, 1/4, etc etc).

That should do it for now - I don't know if I explained this well, but thanks for reading anyway.... ;-)

[1boogieman]

Told ya it was more detailed...........

[LDF]

Originally posted by acousticbilly The above from Boogieman is absolutely correct, but I like to think about harmonics in a (slightly) different way. Take the easiest one first - the 12th fret. As mentioned, if you touch the string lightly right over the 12th fret, a harmonic will sound. Now, you'll notice that the 12th fret is just about at the exact midpoint of the string - instead of the 12th fret, let's think of this harmonic as 1/2 the length of the vibrating string. Having done that, let's look at the other two harmonics mentioned - 5th fret and 7th fret. Check it out.... the 7th fret is about 1/3 of the way along the string, and the 5th fret is about 1/4 of the way along the string. You can keep following the same logic and find harmonics at 1/5, 1/6, 1/7 of the string length and so on, although they do get harder to articulate as you get into the smaller fractions. Now for the fun part - in addition to the natural harmonics we just found, there are a potentially infinite number of "artificial" harmonics that can be found on the neck as well. Let's say you are playing a note on the 5th fret of a given string - notice that the vibrating portion of the string is now limited to the area from the 5th fret to the bridge. If you put a finger halfway along this vibrating portion (figure about the 19th fret), you will find yet another harmonic (again, follow the same logic and find the harmonics at 1/3 the length of the vibrating part of the string, 1/4, etc etc). That should do it for now - I don't know if I explained this well, but thanks for reading anyway.... ;-)

 

 

That's cool. I didn't know you could make artificial harmonics. I'm gonna try that as soon as I get home from work........