How to Play Harmonics on Acoustic Guitar ★ Acoustic Tuesday 239

Acoustic Tuesday | Guitar Routine Show

Tony Polecastro

Music

4.8 • 842 Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Harmonics on acoustic guitar can be tricky! You can't rely on the gain of your amp, which means accuracy is super important. This episode will cover everything you should practice to start playing harmonics on acoustic guitar. Before we go any further, you might be wondering what harmonics are. Harmonics create a bell-like tone you can make on your guitar by gently placing your finger above certain positions on the fretboard and plucking the string. It creates an overtone on the guitar. The end result is an airy, bell-like tone. Between natural and false harmonics, there's a whole sonic landscape to discover with harmonics. The only problem is that playing harmonics on an acoustic guitar is much harder. Electric guitars benefit from having amplification, which means harmonics can be played even if you miss the sweet spot of where the harmonic is. Natural harmonics are located on the 12th, 5th, and 7th frets on a guitar. There are other locations, too, but these are the common places guitarists play natural harmonics. These are considered the easiest harmonics to play on your guitar. Additionally, there are also false harmonics, located all over your fretboard. Playing false harmonics requires accuracy, a gentle touch, and a little bit of trial-and-error. Be sure to catch this whole episode to see how you can get better at playing harmonics on acoustic guitar! Also featured on this episode...- Charlie Parr - Cristina Vane - kyle orla stringworks - Billy Strings - Post Malone - Jon Gomm

Transcript

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0:00.0	Harmonics are absolutely beautiful, but wrapping your head around them and using them in your playing can cause some hiccups and even confusion.
0:08.8	Be confused, no more.
0:10.5	On today's show, I'll be giving you a grand tour of harmonics so you can use them in your playing effortlessly.
0:15.7	And seriously, this is one of those things that is truly fun and actually easy, even though it does involve some math.
0:24.2	You'll see what I mean.
0:25.9	Hey, TAC family, welcome to episode 239 of the Acoustic Tuesday show.
0:30.9	This show is designed to inject your guitar journey with a weekly dose of fun, focus, progress, and inspiration.
0:36.9	A little bit later on today's show, you'll be hearing from an Acoustic Tuesday viewer
0:40.3	who recently celebrated a new guitar day, and with that celebration comes a very valid,
0:46.3	a seriously valid reason on why you need another guitar.
0:50.3	I'm not even joking. You're also going to see what the TAC family is working on today. It's a beautiful guitar lick in the key of C major that involves a harmonized passage. And of course your weekly dose of acoustic news awaits, which includes an unlikely duo, a magical musical moment in about the least magical place in the world and much much more. But first let's go
1:12.2	ahead and tune up your harmonic technique. I want to share with you five
1:16.8	steps to harmonic bliss, five steps to tune up your harmonic technique. Step
1:21.6	number one is defining what a harmonic is. Now this involves physics. I am not a
1:27.3	physics professor. You are not in school right now, so let's keep this fun. Okay, so a harmonic occurs on a node. On any string that vibrates in an elliptical pattern, there are nodes where the string actually doesn't move. That's where we can activate harmonics. Pretty cool stuff. That brings us to step
1:46.0	number two, identifying the places where harmonics occur naturally on a string. And this is
1:52.1	actually pretty easy to remember. They occur at the fifth fret, the seventh fret, and the
1:56.7	12th fret. Now, there are other positions. However, the fifth, seventh, and 12th fret are the
2:02.5	easiest to activate, the easiest to hear, the easiest to really play at a good volume so they can
2:09.9	actually be effective in your playing. And this brings me to step number three, and that is the
2:15.6	technique. Okay, so let's take these three naturally occurring
2:18.7	harmonic positions, and I'm going to show you how to activate the harmonic. We're actually going to
	...

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