Natural Harmonics

Natural harmonics are really quite simple to play, but they are not necessarily the most straight forward technique to understand. Basically, a light touch at the right spot can cause an open string to vibrate at a complete different pitch and even note from the fundamental vibration of the string (the normal note it would play). One very nice and useful aspects of using these is that you can completely remove your fretting and picking hand off the guitar, and the harmonic note will keep ringing. This can be very useful for covering a big hand shift. In the song “Barracuda” by Heart, the main riff has the fretting hand move from the bottom of the neck up about halfway along the neck near the end of each repetition. Just before moving back to the bottom of the neck, the guitarist covers the shift by using a chord made up of natural harmonic notes.

Natural harmonics are not played by actually fretting the note indicated. Instead, the guitarist only needs to lightly touch the string above the indicated fret. The frets actually are not involved in any way with playing natural harmonics, they just serve as convenient ways to refer to the location of nodes (the points on the string where the natural harmonics are located).

The natural harmonics with the note actually played for the high E string are shown below. Keep in mind when playing these that you are not fretting the string where indicated. You only need to lightly touch the string right above the indicated fret. In addition, the node for the B note indicated at the 3rd fret is actually a little bit past the 3rd fret, so make sure you actually hear the harmonic go off when playing it.

You will probably have noticed that the notes are a lot higher in pitch the lower on the neck you start the harmonic. This is because what is actually happening is that you are causing the string to vibrate in a particular way by touching the nodes. The node at the 12th fret is exactly halfway along the string, and your touch causes it to vibrate exactly in half. Actually, this is basically the same principle as to why the fretting at the 12th fret causes the pitch of the string to rise an octave in pitch over the open string as well. Natural harmonics do sound a little different from fretted notes, but the same pitches for the 12, 7, and 5 natural harmonic are obtainable by fretting the guitar as the 12th, 19th, and 24th fret respectively. Sometimes the natural harmonic is more convenient and other times it sounds better.

Some guitarists will basically treat this as a “squealie” and just use it to throw in high pitched notes, but knowing what notes they correspond to does help when trying to include them in melodies. Sometimes that high pitched whistle effect is enough, but being able to get that effect and maintain the melody can be quite effective.

Natural harmonics can be used to form chords as well, and actually are fairly commonly used by some acoustic guitarists in that fashion. You are limited to chords that can be formed with a straight line across the fret though. This basically amounts to E minor, B minor, and G# minor by playing the 1-3 string natural harmonics at the same time or the B major, F# major, and D# major by playing across the 2-4 string harmonics. It is pretty rare to see anyone use anything except for the E minor or B minor chords in this fashion. The other chords tend not to fit into most of the more commonly used keys very well. It’s a nice little trick for throwing in a quick chord before moving your hand up the neck, so keep it in mind if you need any of those chords before a big hand shift.

Keep on rockin'!