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Hi, I am Stewart Bull from licklibrary.com and welcome to this lesson on open harmonics. If we take a string and split it in half, we will arrive at the 12th fret on the guitar. If we place a finger from our left hand immediately over the fret, just gently pluck with our right hand using the plectrum and then remove the finger immediately after. We will get what is known as an open harmonic. If we move to the seventh fret using exactly the same technique right in the fret, we get another harmonic and if we move to the fifth, another one. Now this three harmonics are very common. There are others that are quite easy if you just get into this technique. And so what you want to do is just practice resting that finger. And then as soon as you have plucked it, take the finger off and remember, do not go behind the fret or in front of the fret, right bang on the fret.

And this applies to all the strings, two ways that you might want to use this harmonics is one, when you are playing an uptight riff or two when you are soloing. So you might have a very simple riff in the key of E minor that might sound a lot like this and you might decide to spice it up by putting some harmonics in. Another way you might want to do it is when you are playing a solo. So you have a riff, you break into a solo and then you might want to use the harmonics just to make a little bit of a different passage or just to give you a different sound from playing regular notes. So I am going to play the rift, do a little bit of solo and then put some harmonics in it.

So there you have the open harmonic technique that you can use in your band when you are playing or you are roughly playing, have fun.

Hi, I am Stewart Bull from licklibrary.com and welcome to this lesson on open harmonics. If we take a string and split it in half, we will arrive at the 12th fret on the guitar. If we place a finger from our left hand immediately over the fret, just gently... click to read more