How to Play Harmonics on the Bass Guitar

Video Transcript

"I am Carl Shepard, professional bass instructor. A minute ago I showed you how to do tuning with your harmonics and now I would like to show you how to actually play harmonics. If you play a harmonic typically you are going to get the best harmonic sound on your fifth fret here, on your seventh fret, ninth fret, twelfth fret is a good spot and in between the fifth and the sixth you want to hold your finger kind of over the fret marker there and as close to that as possible and you do not push the string down, you just rest your finger on there to get the sound. You can do this with your thumb and you can do with your fingers. Your thumb gives you more of a presence to the harmonic. So if you want to do a harmonic on the twelfth fret, you want to hold your finger in between the twelfth and the thirteenth fret there. That will give you the best volume for that. Holding it back here, it kind of does not have the same effect. So the closer you are in between the fret that you want and the fret above that - that is the best place to get a harmonic sound. "