Greetings tone lovers. This time we're going to cover how you can add harmonics to your guitar playing.

The easiest way is to flatten out your ring finger and place it across all six strings, directly above the 12th fret wire. You must touch that spot very lightly, lifting you finger off after you've picked the notes. Your picking hand should sweep gently across all six strings. You can't press down on the string too hard or you will get the fretted note instead of the harmonic. If fingered lightly enough and in the right spot the sweet bell like tones of the harmonic will come jumping out. These notes are one octave above the open string.

If you are playing electric, switch to your bridge pickup, so the harmonics will stand out better. Now try the same thing directly over the 7th and 5th fret wire. The note at the 5th fret wire is two octaves above the open string, and the note at the 7th fret wire is a musical fifth between the octaves at the 12th and 5th fret. These three positions are the easiest for producing the natural harmonics of the open strings. You can also produce harmonics at the 4th fret and halfway between the 3rd and 4th fret. If you try these they work better one string at a time. Using distortion also makes these upper harmonics ring out better.

For now , here is a diagram of the harmonic points for your open strings.

Start with your finger over the 2nd fret of your low E string, slowly running it down the string while you pick back and forth rapidly with your other hand.

This will give you and idea of how much harmonic information is present in each note. Have fun experimenting and I'll show you a bunch of cool techniques next time.