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5 Answers 5

up vote 8 down vote accepted


Alternatives are:

  • Well, artificial/pinch harmonics...
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You can strike a natural harmonic, like a nice G at the octave fret across the D,G,B strings, then play fret 2 on D and 1 on B string to turn it into a C afterwards. If you fret them quickly & decisively, the harmonic of the G still rings and it sounds like harmonics in C - but a chord. I do this sometimes and if I get it right, it can sound really hauntingly fulsome.

This might rely on having a lot of gain (or compression/sustain) though as the brief moment where your finger is in the process of fretting the strings damps them a little. It 'should' work on an acoustic guitar too.

I realise you didn't want an articficial harmonic (er I assume by that you mean fretting a string and then playing a harmonic of that) - this is the other way around.

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If you play the C or F harmonics with your fingernail on the side of the string instead of your fingertip on top of the string, you can bend them into tune (or bend many other harmonics). There is also a C just above the 11th fret of the E strings and an F on the 11th fret of the A string. They're pretty fuzzy sounding and take a lot of pressure. They must also be available in other places between frets, but these are easy to find.

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