In this lesson I am going to show you how to do right hand assisted harmonics. First thing you are going to do is you are going to take your middle finger and place it on the third fret of the D string which is the fourth string, one, two, three, four, so third fret, D string.
The next thing you are going to do is you are going to take your index finger of your picking hand and you are going to rest it on the fifteenth fret of the D string. So if this is your twelfth fret, three up from that is your fifteenth fret. Now, you are not actually going to press it down, you are not going to fret it, you are just going to simply let it sit there on top of that fret.
The next thing that you are going to do now that you have your index finger resting here, so you are going to take your pinky and you are going to position it just underneath that D string.
The next step is to pluck up like that. Now at the same time you do this, you have to keep your finger here, but when you pluck up, you have to lift off with your index finger. So altogether, and you have just produced a right-handed assisted harmonic. Now, the way that this works is that in order to produce the harmonic, whatever note you are fretting if it's the third fret on the D string, you have to find the octave of that note with your right hand and the way you do that is an octave in guitar is always twelve frets.
So twelve plus three and starting with the third fret here, twelve plus three is fifteen and that's how we are able to bind that fifteenth fret. Now, if you want to do the next note which is the fourth fret on the V string. It's no different; you just have to slide your fretting hand up to the fret, so the sixteenth fret. And a good way to practice this is to start in an open position, twelfth fret. You don't need to fret it because the twelfth fret is the octave of that string opened, and then go to the first fret with the left hand, thirteenth fret with the right hand, second fret with the left hand, fourteenth fret with the right hand.
You can practice this all over and you can come up with little compositions to practice this on. This technique is generally used in classical guitar. However, it can be customized to be fit with any other style music and you don't have to just do it on a classical, you can just certainly do it on any acoustic guitar or an electric if you prefer. So I would highly advise that you try this out because it is a great thing to know how to do, and at first, little tricky, but once you get down, it's quite fun and you can pull it out pretty quickly. So I hope you enjoyed this and I will see you next time.
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