Heavy Metal Guitar Secrets: How to use all types of harmonics (Video Lesson)

Heavy Metal Guitar secrets: How to make your guitar squeal

Alright guys, this lesson is going to be one with quite a lot of in-depth detail about this subject, as although it’s probably one of the most commonly used tricks in rock music to make your guitar squeal, it is also one of the subjects that hardest to explain as it is most often learned by trial and error. In this lesson I am going to try and combat this.

Let me start by telling you exactly what kind of sound is being picked up by your guitar when you a guitarist is making his/her guitar squeal: they are using notes called harmonics.

Why harmonics?

The simple answer is that harmonics are the highest frequency sound that your guitar can make, and because of the sudden increase in frequency of the sound your guitar is producing, it sounds like your guitar is screaming or squealing. I will be going over all the various methods used by guitarists such as Joe Satriani and Dimebag Darrel to get their signature squeals.

Now, there are essentially only 3 ways for you to hit a harmonic on the guitar and I will list them in order of difficulty in terms of my personal experience.

1. Natural Harmonics
2. Pinched Harmonics
3. Tapped Harmonics

Now I will show you the difference between these harmonics and how they can be applied.

Natural Harmonics

These are achieved by gently placing your finger gently on the string above a certain fret on the guitar, but not holding the string down on the fret, and then plucking the note at almost the precise instant that you pull your finger off. If you do this correctly then you should hear a high pitched sound ring out from the string rather than its usual open note. Bear in mind that while guitars can be tuned differently, due to the measurements between frets on the fret-board being made in an exponential pattern, these positions are constant for all guitars regardless of tuning.

Here are the positions of the natural harmonics on a guitar.

E||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|
B||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|
G||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|
D||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|
A||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|
E||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|

You may find some harmonics over other frets, but these will most likely not be a strong sounding as natural harmonics.

Also, the reason that natural harmonics are easier to play that the other types of harmonics is simple: apart from having to pull your finger off the string as you play it, this type of harmonic isn’t that different to normal guitar playing, making them much easier to learn than the other types.

Natural harmonics are the type used by Dimebag Darrel in his signature squeal, which I will go into further detail on later in the lesson.

Pinched Harmonics

These are more difficult than natural harmonics as they require that you strike the string in a certain position with your picking hand, and that you pluck the string with your pick in a certain way.

Here is how you must hit the strings first of all: you should have the pick positioned in your hand so that there isn’t that much of the pick extending from the flesh of your fingers, with your thumb quite close to the edge of your pick as well. This is because in order to use a pinch harmonic, you have to pluck the string with the pick, but immediately after this, the string has to be partially muted with the flesh of your thumb, which will cause a ringing sound very similar to the natural harmonics.

However, just like natural harmonics, there is a specific place that you need to hit the strings in order for it to work, but what is harder about these harmonics in this respect is that there are no frets beneath them to use as markers, and as all pickups are slightly different there is no real way to use a universal point that works for every guitar.

Instead, to find the places that these harmonics will work at, use the following method:

Gently place one of your fingers on the string that you are going to try and play a pinched harmonic on, and then run it down from where your fret-board ends all the way to the guitar bridge (where the strings are attached to the guitar body) while plucking the string with your pick all the time you are doing this. As you move your finger along, you will hear that at certain points there will be a higher pitched sound ringing out of the string(s) that just having the strings deadened by your hand. The places that you hear these sounds, are the positions at which a pinch harmonic can be played.

Why are pinched harmonics slightly different for each guitar?

Some guitars have a different scale length, which means the neck might be slightly larger or smaller than usual, thereby changing the positions of the pinched harmonics. Some guitars have more than 22 frets, I know this because quite a few of my guitars have 24 frets on them; this as a result might mean that the harmonics are closer to the guitar neck because the guitar neck is extending further into the guitar body. Also, the reason why I can’t use pickups as a reference is because the pickups do not affect the position of these harmonics, and there are thousands of different pickups that can be installed on a guitar, each with varying sizes, sounds, and designs, making it impossible for me to say ‘look for the middle of the pickup’ because the pickup might not even be there.

These types of harmonics are used very frequently by metal players, and I can wholeheartedly say that they require practice to get right, but even the most experienced player can’t get them right all the time as most people tend to look at their fretting hand which is responsible for 95% of the notes that your guitar makes, rather than their picking hand, which of course means that they have to memorize where these harmonics are instead of looking at the strings to make sure that they have got it right. Don’t worry if you don’t get these right all of the time, as they are still hit and miss for some of the best guitarists out there.

Pinch harmonics are the kind used by Joe Satriani in his signature ‘Satch Squeal’, which I will go into further detail on in a bit.

Tapped harmonics

Tapped harmonics are probably the hardest to implement out of all the types of harmonics, but are also some of the least used in modern music, making them a unique alternative to the usual harmonics that everybody else is using.

The reason why tapped harmonics are harder to use than pinched harmonics and natural harmonics is actually very simple. Like natural harmonics, there are certain positions that you need to tap the fret-board at in order to get the harmonics to ring out, but unlike natural harmonics on the open strings, these positions are determined by where you are fretting a note with your fretting hand. Allow me to explain:

As I explained earlier, the positions of natural harmonics for the open strings is easy to plot out, and so all it comes down to is memorisation. When you hold down the string on any fretted note, because of the way that the scaling system of measurements between the frets on the guitar works the same distance of frets applies to the new natural harmonics present. For example:

If the guitar is played open (no hands holding down the strings), then the natural harmonics will appear here:-

E||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|
B||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|
G||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|
D||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|
A||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|
E||-4---5----7----12-|-19---------------||------------------|-------------------|

But if you hold down all the strings on the 1st fret (or use a cappo on the 1st fret if you’re lazy), then the natural harmonics will appear in these positions instead:-

E||-5---6----8----13-|-20---------------||------------------|-------------------|
B||-5---6----8----13-|-20---------------||------------------|-------------------|
G||-5---6----8----13-|-20---------------||------------------|-------------------|
D||-5---6----8----13-|-20---------------||------------------|-------------------|
A||-5---6----8----13-|-20---------------||------------------|-------------------|
E||-5---6----8----13-|-20---------------||------------------|-------------------|

This next bit is important, so remember it.

The distance in frets between a note and the harmonics doesn’t change because a fret-board is made with an exponential measuring system. For example, there will always be a natural harmonic note above the fret that is five frets closer to the Guitar Bridge (or closer to the guitar pickups if you don’t know what a guitar bridge is).

Obviously, because you are holding down the string with the finger(s) on your fretting hand already, this means that you can’t use the normal technique of gently laying your finger over the frets, especially considering some harmonics can be as much as 12 frets away or more.

This is where tapped harmonics comes in. Instead of using your fretting hand as you did with natural harmonics, this time you need to use your picking hand. You need to tap a finger, it doesn’t matter which one but I strongly advise practicing this with different fingers, and gently tap the string directly over the fret that the harmonic is going to appear on. If you do this successfully then you should here a high pitched ringing sound being produced; don’t try and push down to hard on the string when you do this as you will deaden the note, in fact it’s a good idea in my experience to almost try and ‘bounce’ your finger off the string so that it’s out of the way as quickly as possible.

The intervals between each note fretted and it’s natural harmonics are always the same, e.g. there are going to be harmonics 4 frets higher, 5 frets higher, 7 frets higher, 12 frets higher and so on. This will require a lot more mental effort than the other two methods of tapping, but it’s definitely worthwhile as the harmonics are more spread out.

This type of harmonics has been used by guitarists such as Paul Gilbert and Steve Morse amongst others. Look for the live version of ‘Technical Difficulties’ by Gilbert and ‘Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming’ by Deep Purple, the band that Steve Morse currently serves in along with his own band The Dixie Dregs

So there you have it: the three ways in which you can achieve harmonics on your guitar.

Now as I said earlier, I will show you the secrets behind the infamous Dimebag Darrel Dive-bomb and the Joe Satriani Satch Squeal.

First up, the secret of the sadly deceased heavy metal cowboy, Dimebag Darrel.

Now, the natural sustain that kept this signature sound of his going was due to his signature pickups, Dimebuckers, which to this day remain the most powerful passive pickups ever made. Apart from this, the way he achieved his signature squealing sound was quite simple, and used natural harmonics.

Using the whammy bar/tremolo arm he first depressed the strings and then hit a natural harmonic either by the usual method of gently laying a finger over the right fret and then plucking the string, or by plucking the string first with his fretting hand and then quickly tapping a harmonic with his fretting hand while the string was still depressed. As soon as he had done this, he would raise the whammy bar and increase the pitch of the note and then lower it/raise it as he wished, thus achieving his signature squealing sound.

The thing to focus on here is remembering where the natural harmonics appear on the guitar so that you don’t accidentally silence the string instead of getting the harmonic to ring out. Obviously you will also need a guitar with a tremolo system on it as well in order to perform this trick.

And last but certainly not least, Joe Satriani’s signature Satch squeal.

The trick in this technique is making sure that you can remember to keep your guitar pick in the right position so that you can hit these pinched harmonics effectively.

Also, you will have be aware with both of these guitar tricks that they are still basically raising and lowering certain open string notes, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. Sometimes these tricks will work, and sometimes they won’t; it’s up to you to practice and discover when is the best time to use them.

And that’s pretty much all there is too it. If you want me to go into greater detail on how to achieve these techniques, I now have the ability to create a video version of this lesson where I can perform each of these guitar tricks for you, so just leave a comment I will make the video lesson for you.

I hope that this lesson has helped some of you out there.

Take care guys and I’ll see you next time!