Guitar Harmonics Lesson

What’s up? This is Austin Kritzer of Paradigm for freeandeasyguitar.com and I’m going to teach you a little bit about artificial and natural harmonics. Now for those of you guys who don’t know what harmonic sounds like and natural harmonic is basically something like that. It’s kind of like if you leave your guitar setting with the amp on and distortion on that will kind of start to sound like that. But basically, harmonics can be used for a lot of cool stuff like solos and even riffs. Riffs are more so with artificial harmonics but I guess that you can use. Metallica uses national harmonics, the song I just hear and the chorus are just— [Demonstration] And like I said they’re pretty cool sound. They ring out and they were fun to mess around with especially if you have a fully gross bridge. But anyway enough about that, I want you to teach you how to pull off a natural harmonic sound. What you want to do on the 12th fret is the easiest place to learn how to do this because it’s easy as harmonica grab. What you want to do is you want to take any finger to run you on and join those so you want to rest it right above the fret, not in between the frets like when you push and then you do it right over top. So what you want to do is you’re going to rest your finger and basically just a way to your finger pretty much. You don’t want to push in at all and you just want to plop the string and let go. So once you grab that harmonic definitely let go because if you don’t the dying off sounds kind of because it’s muted pretty much. But you know if you let go that sound, it will last for a long time especially if we got a hot pickup which is best for doing harmonica stuff. Hum backers definitely work the best but any pickup will work but like I said the easiest way is definitely to have one of these hum buckers just go to these simple coil. It comes in handy when you’re using or trying to get artificial harmonics which is a little bit harder to pull off. And also when you grab a natural harmonic, if you got a fully addressed bridge, don’t be afraid to show off a little bit with it. Once you snug on [Demonstration] It sounds pretty cool especially if there is some delay on. Another thing about natural harmonics is because there are so many more than what is usually written in the music. For instance I’m just going chug on the E string and I just pulled my finger up. You could see how many harmonics are actually on it. It’s awesome [Demonstration] You said it even go past the fret board which is pretty cool. So basically, like there you can find a harmonic just about anywhere on the neck and like I said don’t be afraid to use them that’s a done bag uses it as a kind of weird harmonic all the time. It did tell you a lot of these top squeal stuff but I’ll save that for another lesson because that’s a little bit weird or a technique. But don’t be afraid to experiment with weird harmonics and it’s definitely fun to mess around with which brings me to the next kind of harmonic which is artificial. Artificial harmonic can be done anywhere on the neck. Any fret anywhere and as opposed to a natural harmonic you actually have to push the string down and artificial harmonics you really don’t catch them unless you listen for Van Halen, in the old time and they pretty much sound like this. [Demonstration] And so they’re kind of hard to do it first like I said I get to find the sweet spot on the guitar. What you want to do we’ll see like of kind of demonstrate like this. What you want to do is you don’t want to pick straight down. You want to kind of scoop with your pick so your thumb is the last thing that hits the string. So basically, I’m doing this one on the ninth fret of the G string. And basically, it’s as if you want to scoop so it’s going to be hard to play. [Demonstration] And basically, like guys you could hear there’s some kind of weird voices right there. It also matters where you are horizontally on the guitar. So each guitar has a different switch button, that’s what I’d like to call it. So you kind to have to [Demonstration] It sounds like kind of croppy but like I said you just got to move your hands horizontally until you’re find where it is like basically where it is on the guitar and these things we could be playing now anywhere. And they’re really fun to use like I said Zakk Wylde uses them and Black Label Society barely uses them and since you’re going on like a real heavy riff like it used to [Demonstration] This pickup really is hard enough but like I said anybody can pretty much deal with any pickup but it just takes a little practice. I haven’t done it for a while which is like kind of some kind of crappy right now. But definitely the fundamentals around with, you could do a lot of cool stuffs, wheels, and even this solo stuff just mess around it’s g [Demonstration] And a lot of people think they’re really cool and they’re fun to play with and I love doing these wheels and stuff because like I said they’re fun. But definitely try to use them, practice a little bit and as long as you can do it will definitely open up a whole new world plan for you especially if you’re metal head like me. You’re going to play a lot more stuff, Shadow’s Fall, Black Label Society, Panther and Damageplan things like that. But I definitely give it a shot and like I said for artificial just rest your finger right over the top of the fret and go for it and then you know artificial is fun at the weakest spot and because it scoops the pick you got to make sure your thumb is the last thing to hit. You may take a little bit for you to pick up on it and do it right but it’s definitely worst at the end. It’s a cool tool to have especially when you’re writing stuff. So keep a tune here for freeandeasyguitar.com if you want to get some more lessons and don’t be afraid to shoot request in the forum or on the threads or whatever. You definitely send request if you ask one technique or anything or songs, shoot my way and I’m sure to get to them. So keep your tune free and easy guitar for more lessons.