Learn To Play Blues Guitar

If I had to recommend one guitarist for you to listen to, when learning to play blues guitar and attempting to get to grips with pinch harmonics, I would have to choose Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top fame.

This Texas style player is an absolute master of the pinch and bend technique. Listen to the track titled My Heads in Mississippi, from the 1994 album Recycler. Some masterful examples of pinch harmonics technique can be found within this piece.

Pinch Harmonics

I can’t think of a single technique that is harder to get down than pinch harmonics. Even after years of playing you will still mess up one every so often. The real problem with a fluffed pinch harmonic is that there is often no way to hide it, unlike a dropped note of a miss pick.

So how do we make our guitar screech like a tomcat on the prowl?

Almost every other guitar technique can be built up slowly. This is not the case with pinch harmonics.

You either get it right, or you do not get the required sound. So lets jump straight into the deep end with a little technical analysis of harmonics.

• Strings vibrate and create natural harmonics.
• If you pick an open string, the natural harmonics would sound on the 5th, 7th and 12th frets
• Play the open string then gently damped the 5th fret with your fingertip, congratulations you just played a natural harmonic

Now, if you were to fret the E string on the 3rd fret and play the string, the harmonic positions would move up the neck to the 8th, 10th and 15th fret. Are you with me so far?

You now know how to locate the position of those harmonics just waiting to be unleashed.

Next we move on to actually encouraging them, there are a lot of ways to accomplish this.

I do it with an up-pick, and pinch off the string with my index finger after the pick has played the string, think of it as dampening immediately after the pick, by using the finger as it follows the pick.

By performing this right had technique at the correct place on the neck for the current note you are fingering, you will be rewarded by one of the finest sounds known to mankind.

Practice Makes Perfect

The best way to learn to play pinch harmonics is by accident.

Learn the theory and then play around with it until you accidentally produce a pinch harmonic. Once you have done it a single time, it will fall in to place.

Then begins the long road to being able to produce punch harmonics flawlessly every time, something that is a lot more difficult than it sounds. Don’t give up, keep trying and you will eventually get the hang of it.

Filed under: Learn To Play Blues Guitar