How to Play an Artificial Harmonic on Guitar

Let as little of the pick show as possible.

Want to make your guitar squeal like Zakk Wylde? It's simple. The artificial harmonic on a distorted electric guitar creates that awesome, ear-piercing note that screams through the amp. And throwing it into a riff is easy as long as you hold the pick right.

Things You'll Need

• Electric guitar
• amplifier
• distortion
• pick

Instructions

Making your guitar scream

1. First of all (although not absolutely necessary) for the artificial harmonic to obtain that nuclear screeching sound, you need distortion. Don't muddle the notes with overt gain and fuzz, but find a nice medium. It will keep the artificial harmonic from going "BOING" and instead make banshee velocity shrieks.

2. Make sure to set your guitar to the lead pickup. Depending on the quality of your pickups, you may be able to get a decent artificial harmonic out of the rhythm pickup, but why settle for decent, when it could be blistering?

3. The most important step: Hold your pick with a tight, close grip. Expose as little of the pick as possible. The actual artificial harmonic is formed by combining a short downward picking motion, followed immediately by a bump with your thumb (the knuckle or between the knuckle and tip). The pick should almost scrape the string and with the extremely close grip your thumb will hit the string next. The two should hit so quickly, in fact, that they almost hit at the exact same time.

4. Vibrato. Depending on your riff, artificial harmonics almost always sound better with a little vibrato.

5. Practice. Practice. This may take several tries before you hit it just right but keep trying. It's a simple, quick flick of the wrist. The artificial harmonic is a great tool in your lead guitar arsenal no matter what style music you play.

Tips & Warnings

• If you're strings are old, the harmonic won't ring out as long and might even sound muffled. Change your strings regularly.

• The type of pick sometimes effects the harmonic. I recommend Dunlop Gator Grip picks. They tend to fray, but that doesn't directly effect the artificial harmonic. They are easy to grip and their action on the strings is unbeatable.

• Artificial harmonics produce notes several octaves higher than normal picking. If you're playing out of a Marshall half stack turned up to 10 in an enclosed space, you may go deaf. Well, you're going to go deaf playing a Marshall at 10 in an enclosed space anyway, but this will just expedite the hearing loss.

Resources

• Listen to artificial harmonics in this video.