Pinch Harmonics

[GuitarStv]

I've never really played particularly heavy stuff, so it wasn't until this year that I started trying to do pinch harmonics. From what I gather you're supposed to tap the string with the tip of your thumb just after you pick a note to get that squealing sound . . . for me, this has turned out to be impossible. My thumb always hits the string too hard and it mutes the string.

I'm able to get them about 80% of the time that I try by picking and almost simultaneously sliding the top of my right hand index finger nail into and past the string. (It's like the pick hits and then almost simultaneously the nail hits the string) Is this just really bad technique, or have I discovered an alternate way to do them?

 

[Kam]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

What I tend to do is turn the pick about 45 degrees so that I'm picking the string more with the edge than the flat side. Dig in hard and when you naturally follow through with that movement you hit the string with the side of your thumb around about the first knuckle.

It's not a technique I use very often so I don't know if that's technically the 'correct' way of doing things but it works for me.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

Is this just really bad technique, or have I discovered an alternate way to do them?

Both?

Performing a pinch harmonic isn't a 2-step maneuver.

You want to pick through the string and graze it ever-so-slightly with the side of your thumb as you go by.

Most of this action is coming from a wrist-twist motion with a little thumb flex thrown in.

I agree w/ the youtube recommendations... you can find all kinds of decent instructional videos there.

 

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

lol, wut?

Pretty much what soso said, you just graze the string after picking with the side of your thumb. If the string goes dead you're not getting your thumb off it fast enough, choking down on your pick a little helps. Also, bending the note and some vibrato does the ZW thing.

 

[uOpt]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

I use the little finger to dampen in the appropriate position and pick normally. I think the little finger use for flageolet comes from classical guitar.

 

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

^^^^^I so want to make jokes out of that word.

 

[Ball&Chain]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

yea, its definitely more like the side of the thumb with the side of the pick simultaneously. Im pretty sure I dig in at the point where the thumb and pick meet. I keep the pick at about a 45 degree angle naturally, so if you normally flat pick you might have to consciously turn the pick.

One thing not mentioned, but probably something that everybody who does this knows is that you can get different harmonics depending on where you do the pinch at the bridge and going forward from there.

 

[Barron1]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

its also easier to do it with certain pickups more than others. I noticed I can just pinch them out with a Duncan Distortion no problem better than with other pups.

 

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

Pickups help amplify them, but if you can't do one on a cheap epiphone pickup you won't be able to do one on an EMG.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

yuuuuup

 

[UberMetalDood]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

I get them several different ways. I use the side of my thumb as I pick, and I've practiced so that I can do it on both an upstroke and downstroke. The second is where you put your pick hand. It's harder sometimes to get them when your pick is close to the bridge where the strings are very stiff. It also makes a different harmonic sound on the same string when you do pick harmonics near the trem or closer to the neck pickup.

Near the neck pickup gives me that kind of Vinnie Moore pinch harmonic that sounds kind of lower midrange, and near the bridge gives me a squealier, higher pitched harmonic.

I also turn my pick at a more extreme angle across the strings so that I kind of rake the side of my thumb across the string at the same time instead of picking it and trying to catch it with my thumb.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

I don't even need a guitar.

I'm doing them right now.

 

[JOLLY]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

I can do them on an acoustic without even using a pick. That's what happens when you grow up playing a piece of crap acoustic with action 3/4" high.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

I'm doing them on Jolly's acoustic using only my mind.

 

[JOLLY]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

Wait a minute.........damn..........I can hear them. Awesome!!

 

[sosomething]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

Do you have any requests?

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

So . . . nobody plays them with their index finger rather than their thumb, eh? Dammit . . . it's so much easier the way I've been doing it.

 

[sosomething]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

Kegels don't count Adam

no sarcasm

 

[sosomething]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

Really?

My life is complete... I don't need a smartphone or a two story house after all.

No one is unhappy on a Jet ski... Just try it.

And he follows with a Daniel Tosh reference!

You are on a roll, Mr. [DATA EXPUNGED].

 

[Kam]

Re: Pinch Harmonics

Wow...This thread got really weird, really fast.

Diocletian uploaded a recording of himself playing scales in pinch harmonics on an acoustic once. It was pretty impressive and actually sounded really cool.

So . . . nobody plays them with their index finger rather than their thumb, eh? Dammit . . . it's so much easier the way I've been doing it.

That's actually the way I did it when I was first trying to learn but I found it much easier once I started using my thumb. It's really not that much different from picking normally, except for a slightly different angle on both the pick and the motion of the follow through. The hardest part for me has always been picking at the right section of the string. I tend to vary wildly on where abouts precisely that I pick the strings so if I try to throw in a pinch I more often than not just end up with an awful sounding dead note.