How to Play Harmonics on the Electric Guitar

Part of the Video Series How to Play the Electric Guitar

Viewing videos requires the latest version of Adobe's Flash Player.
Get the latest Flash player.

Member Comments

Login or register to be the first to comment on this article!

Video Transcript

How to Play Harmonics on the Electric Guitar
Hi! My name is Mike Larney from the band Naked Underneath, and on behalf of Expert Village I am going to go over harmonics and false harmonics on electric guitar. So harmonics is different than playing a string open, or pressing the fret down. When you press the fret down, your fingers butted up against the fret here. And, when you do a harmonic, you want to press the string, but you do not want to touch it to the fret, you just want to touch the top of the string over the fret, directly over the fret, and you get this kind of sound. Now, those exist all over the guitar, two easy places to find harmonics is on the fifth fret and the seventh fret, and also the 12th fret. Now, a way to force a harmonic anywhere on the guitar is to press the fret down, and with your pick hand you want to pluck the string and hit it with your thumb at the same time. There it is. So, if we put that into a scale that we have learned… And you just annoy all your friends by trying to get the false harmonics; there it is.

About the Expert

Expert: Michael Larney is a professional musician, who has been playing guitar and writing music for 15 years. Read More

Related Videos (1-5 of 104)


Arts & Entertainment | Business | Careers | Cars | Computers | Culture & Society | Education | Electronics | Fashion, Style & Personal Care | Food & Drink | Health | Hobbies, Games & Toys | Holidays & Celebrations | Home & Garden | Internet | Legal | Music | Parenting | Parties & Entertaining | Personal Finance | Pets | Relationships & Family | Sports & Fitness | Travel | Weddings | Bartending | Cooking Dictionary
Partner Sites: Airliners | How to Articles | Answers | Funny Videos
Demand Media