Pretty well every guitar player has experimented with natural harmonics at one time or another. These are the familiar ones that occur at the 12th, 7th, 5th and 4th frets and even further down the fingerboard if you can get them to ring. The physics of this has been well documented on the web, so I won’t go into that here, except to say beware of what you read about how they have been used in the past. I’ve seen entries that date the use of artificial harmonics back to the 1970’s. Well perhaps that’s when they gained currency on the rock scene, but many jazz artists like Tal Farlow, and probably most famously Lennie Breau, country players like Chet Atkins and of course, classical and South American composers predated this usage by many years.
Just as the natural harmonics can be created 12, 7, 5 (and so on) frets above the nut, artificial harmonics can be generated at any pitch, by setting up a node 12, 7, 5 (and so on) frets above a fingered note. Setting up the node at the 7th or 5th fret above a fingered note is certainly less practical, since it won’t be as loud, and you’ll have to think up a 14th (a what?) to figure out the 7th fret pitch you’re going to get (and a double octave for the 5th), but doing so might certainly have its uses. Using 12th fret artificials is by far the more practical and commonly used method.
The problem here is developing a technique for picking them when the left hand is tied up fretting the fundamental note.
Fig 1 Picking an Artificial Harmonic at the 15th fret.
In the picture at left, the left hand is fingering a G (3rd fret, 6th string) and the right hand index finger lightly touches the 6th string over the 15th fret, while the thumb picks the harmonic. The resulting note is a G2 in midispeak; the same pitch you’d get if you picked the G (3rd) string open. Be sure to remove the index (node finger) immediately after you pick the note so it doesn’t get damped.
This can also be done with a flat pick, by holding the pick between the thumb and middle finger, or thumb and fingers 2 & 3, while still using the index finger to set up the node.
Fig 3 Harm at 15th Fret with Thumb-pick
You might even work up an alternate picking technique for doing this. I’m a finger picker so I’ll leave that one to you! Tal Farlow (different link) often took entire jazz solo choruses played entirely with artificial harmonics at surprising speed. If you study these (check the library), you may be able to work out what his picking scheme was. At any rate, it will be well worth the while to practice some scales or your favourite licks to get a feel for having to trace the left hand pattern with your right index finger, while picking the notes.
It’s even possible to ‘strum’ artificial harmonics after a fashion. You’ll want to use a left hand shape that can be easily traced by the right hand index (node) finger with an arm motion; something like a Gmaj7 [insert] chart or an Am7, or Am11. With more practice you can add more complicated shapes, but I won’t try to overstate the usefulness of this –at least not until somebody develops it and records something stunning with it!
Back To TopAt this point I’m going to dispense with the term ‘artificial’ since first of all, there’s really nothing artificial about them anyway, and secondly, for all of the following we’re going to use the right hand method of picking them regardless of where they occur on the string, be it open or fingered.
Back To TopPicking 2 harmonics at once is an attractive idea, but it will certainly be limited to the shapes you can make with the available right-hand fingers. I generally use the thumb and baby fingers for picking, which leaves the middle three available for nodes, although other fingerpickers might prefer to use the ring finger for picking if they haven’t already developed the baby for the purpose.
Fig 4 Two Harmonics at once –top view
I find the independence of the baby finger makes it by far more useful for the job; you can get a better angle on the string with it, and if you grow the nail an eighth of an inch or so longer than the others, it helps to compensate for the fingers’ shorter length. It would make sense to practice this with natural harmonics at first so both node fingers are working at the same fret. Then you might try something like a Gma7 6add9 chord to add one fret to the spread, and then an Am9 11 and try to get that spread to 2 frets.
Back To TopA much more practical use of the artificial harmonic, is the use of one harmonic within a chord voicing to create a cluster that might otherwise be unplayable. As far as I am aware, this was developed mostly by Lennie Breau, but knowing that Lennie learned a great deal from studying Chet Atkins, I’d suspect that Chet had much to do with the genesis of the technique, and it’s entirely possible that Villa Lobos or Francisco Tarrega may have predated Chet’s work.
While several of Lennie’s signature techniques became popular –we’ll get to the ‘harp’ stuff later, it disappoints me that this method of playing clusters seems to have been missed. In my opinion it’s the most generally useful, and most easily learned of the methods that helped to define his sound. I came across it when doing transcriptions off ‘Live at Shelley’s Manhole’ back in the early 70’s, and it’s been part of my own little arsenal ever since. I'm afraid the Album just mentioned may have gone out of print, but you can get 'Live at Bourbon St.', which is excellent, here.
We can start this by learning to play one harmonic along with a normal note. It’s probably easiest, and most effective when the selected string pairs are 3 and 1, 4 and 2, 5 and 3 etc.. At first, let’s leave the left hand out of the picture and just work across the 12th fret. This gives us the open strings, which form a chord we might name as Em11 (Em7 plus A, the 11th note in a 2 octave E major scale).
Starting with the 3rd and 1st string pair, we’ll play a harmonic on the 3rd string (at the 12th fret), and at the same time using the baby finger, we’ll pick the 1st string. What we end up with is a ‘pinch’ between the thumb and little finger of the right hand, while using the index as the ‘node’ finger. Here are a couple of pictures. The first one is a top view, pinching a harmonic and normal note at the 12th fret. The second one is a front view of a similar situation, except we’re working at the 17th fret.
Fig 6. Picking the 3rd and 1st together.
Fig 7. Picking the 3rd and 1st together.
You might be tempted, at this point to use the ring finger instead of the baby, since chances are, you’ve never used the baby for picking and it’s not been developed at all. I recommend that you resist this and get that little finger up to speed. You’re going to need it later. Next, we can use exactly the same technique, selecting pairs 4-2, 5-3, 6-4.
Let’s have a look at what we’ve done in notation form:
Example 1. Harmonics and normal notes on the open strings.
We can hear it here: Example 1.mp3
There appears to be some dissension regarding the notation of harmonics in guitar literature. Some publishers show a diamond shaped note drawn at the pitch it sounds at, and some are more inclined to draw it where it is fingered by the left hand. I believe the former is more likely to be seen in classical guitar notation than in the popular literature.
I have opted to show the diamond shaped note where the left hand would finger it, the TAB for that. Below that I show what the guitar notation would be to play the same thing with all normal notes, and then the TAB for that. Some of the TAB on the bottom line will be unplayable, at least with the sustain on all strings that is available when using harmonics. That’s part of the reason for employing the harmonics in the first place. I am working on another article that’s just about playing clusters on the guitar, and a large part of that will use these artificial harmonic techniques.
Now, if we try this with a simple triadic chord structure, it’s going to sound a bit disappointing. Try it with a 3rd fret straight G major Bar chord: All we’re hearing here is various combinations of 3 different notes, G, B and D. There is too much doubling in a chord of this type to achieve the variety we got from the open strings, although it might just be the ticket in a folk or pop tune, so we won’t write it off entirely.
Example 2. Using a straight, G Bar Chord.
The kinds of chords, which really exploit the possibilities of the guitar with this technique, are those with the least duplications. One of the best examples is a major7 6add9 form, demonstrated here as a Gmaj7 6 add 9: Here we have every note in the G major scale except C, and using this technique, we are able to express it in intervals not normally available to the guitar with one left hand ‘grip’ if you will.
Example 3. Using a Gmaj7 6add9
Example 4 Using an Am11 chord
Another voicing, which is fun to try in combination with the one just shown is an Am11, or some folks might want to call it D13sus4/A Now this is getting nice and crunchy! We’re getting intervals of a minor 2nd, which really spice up the sound.
Let’s throw in one more: D+7#9
Example 5. Using a D7#5#9 chord.
Now we can extend this technique to achieve something a bit more sophisticated. Let’s go back the Gma7 6add9 Chord, and start picking 3 and 4 note chords, always raising the lowest note 1 octave by playing it as a harmonic.
Example 6. 3 and 4 note chords with Gmaj7 6add9. Example 6.mp3
Here’s what the A-11 chord yields:
Example7. 3 and 4 note chords with A-11. Example 7.mp3
And now the D7#5#9
Example 8. 3 and 4 note chords with D7#5#9. Example 8.mp3
In this article, I’m only showing the options of picking pairs separated by 1 string (1 & 3, 2 & 4, etc.) and chords based on consecutive strings. Don’t ignore the possibilities offered by other string combinations.
Back To TopAlso, this stuff doesn’t have to be pretty. Crank up the overdrive and try it out!
If you’re at all familiar with Lennie Breau’s music, you can probably hear what’s going to come out of this. If we start to alternate between these harmonics, and the normal notes we’ve been picking with the baby finger, we can produce some interesting harp-like scales:
On the Am11we get this:
Example 9. Using Am11 chord with alternate harmonics and normals.
And, if we add a pull-off and a hammer-on, it is easily turned into this, which sounds very familiar. Inserting an extra normal note has the effect of throwing the harmonics onto the off beats, which is a very nice effect. You’ll want to try this technique (with and without the extra notes) on as many chord shapes as you can, varying the direction of the line, and where the harmonics fall on or off the beat.
Example 10. Using Am11 with pull-off and hammer-on.
Also, keep in mind that since we have turned this chord shape into a scale (C major, minus the 4th) we could apply it to just about any chord from that key, or since the F(#) is missing it will be playable against many harmonies from G Major/E minor as well, but you’ll want to be careful with the C’s.
Here’s an example of what we just did, applied a little differently to the Gmaj7 6add9:
Example 11. Using Gmaj7 6add9 with pull-off and hammer-on.
And this is just a rambling bit of wanking, and hopefully some ideas to help get your own searching started.
While one can use these scalar passages in his own playing (or overuse them, as I probably do), they are so inextricably connected with Lennie Breau that one does feel a niggling bite of plagiarism whenever he does it. Having said that, I think it’s well known that Lennie offered his creations freely, and apparently with the hope that this, and his other techniques, would gain a currency that would be his legacy to the guitar. The special beauty of these scalar passages does make them stand out and draw attention to themselves; and with this comes the danger that they become clichéd. Use them at your peril.
I do think that the method of re-voicing chords with this method holds a huge potential that, while well developed by Lennie, has been largely ignored. I’ll be following up on this theme with an article on the creation of clustered voicings, in which this technique will be a central component.
A web search will reveal many sites and articles about Lennie Breau. Don’t miss Lennie Breau –Fingerstyle Jazz by John Knowles. John (a guitar master in his own rite) worked with Lennie for many years, and Lennie personally collaborated on the book and accompanying CD. The book addresses similar material to that above, along with Lennie’s use of tri-tones.
Copyright 2006 Keith Smith & SampleSmith.com
SampleSmith Home
