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Take 5: Harmonics

Accelerated Technique-Specific Study Program for Harmonics on Acoustic Guitar

Marty FriedmanTommy EmmanuelSteve VaiEric GalesEric Johnson

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Take 5: Harmonics
Muriel Anderson

Muriel Anderson

Educator

acoustic, fingerstyle, americana

Genres

About this course

This Harmonics edition of Take 5 from Muriel Anderson is an accelerated curriculum designed to help get your harmonics technique up and running quickly without having to struggle through a lot of tedious exercises and boring etudes. Work through the course and you’ll have a basic but solid harmonics technique under your belt and five practice pieces featuring harmonics to incorporate in your repertoire!

”Innovative use of harmonics can add sparkle and interest to your music, and besides, they're just plain cool. Players like Chet Atkins, Lenny Breau, and Tommy Emmanuel all make extensive use of harmonics in their playing, and I'll show you quite a few of those techniques in this course. I cover natural harmonics, artificial harmonics, harp harmonics that I learned from Chet Atkins, and a couple of techniques of my own–palm harmonics and extended harp-harmonics. Once you get the concept and the physics of the technique, the creative possibilities are endless!”

You’ll start the course with a quick primer during which Muriel will explain what harmonics are, what’s really happening with the vibrating string, and then she’ll show you a variety of unique harmonic techniques.

”First, I'll explain a little bit of the physics of harmonics to help you understand the basic concept. Then, I'll cover several kinds of techniques for harmonics: Natural harmonics, Harp harmonics (as learned from Chet Atkins/Lenny Breau), Palm harmonics, and Backward Raked harmonics. I also show you many ways you can finger and pluck harmonics and the advantages of each - there are a lot of ways to be efficient and creative to get an effect you want in your music.”


Muriel will then guide you through 5 Harmonic studies, progressing from basic to more advanced applications of the technique

Muriel will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way.  You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the Performance Studies. In addition, you’ll be able to loop or slow down any of the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.

Grab your guitar and let’s let’s play some harmonics with Muriel Anderson!

———

TrueFire’s Take 5 courses feature an accelerated curricular approach to help students get up to speed quickly on a particular style or technique. Each Take 5 course starts with a primer on the particular style or technique and then guides the student through 5 performance studies progressing from basic applications to more sophisticated approaches.

What you'll learn

  • Play melodies an octave higher without changing left hand position
  • Play independent bass lines with thumb while producing harmonics
  • Perform a complete etude combining harmonics and bass notes
  • Apply harmonics to create melodic variations in arrangements
  • Understand the physics of what harmonics are and how strings vibrate
Release date: 10/11/2018 • 0h 54m runtime
intermediatelate intermediateadvancedacoustic guitarguitartechniquepractice
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Sample lessons
Level 5: Fingerstyle Harmonics
Level 5: Fingerstyle Harmonics
Overview
Level 5: Fingerstyle Harmonics
Level 5: Fingerstyle Harmonics
Performance
Level 5: Fingerstyle Harmonics
Level 5: Fingerstyle Harmonics
Breakdown

What's included

18 lessons • 5 charts

Take 5: Harmonics
Hi, I'm Muriel Anderson, and welcome to this Harmonics edition of Take 5. Innovative use of harmonics can add sparkle and interest to your music, and besides, they're just plain cool. Players like Chet Atkins, Lenny Breau, and Tommy Emmanuel all make extensive use of harmonics in their playing, and I'll show you quite a few of those techniques in this course.

I cover natural harmonics, artificial harmonics, harp harmonics that I learned from Chet Atkins, and a couple of techniques of my own–palm harmonics and extended harp-harmonics. Once you get the concept and the physics of the technique, the creative possibilities are endless!
Fingerstyle Harmonics Primer
Here I'll explain what harmonics are and demonstrate some of the many different ways you can do them. Once you get the whole concept of harmonics, you can come up with your own techniques. I've come up with a couple of different variations on technique just to get a sound that I was looking for. My "Silent Night" arrangement uses 19 different harmonic techniques between the different strings to pluck and the different notes to do as harmonics.

First, I'll explain a little bit of the physics of harmonics to help you understand the basic concept. Then, I'll cover several kinds of techniques for harmonics:
  • Natural harmonics: the harmonics you get from touching the halfway point as well as the 1/3, 1/4, and other fractions of an open string, the "node" while plucking the string.
  • Artificial harmonics: fretting notes to change the pitch while playing harmonics at the halfway point (or other fraction) of the active string length
  • Harp harmonics (as learned from Chet Atkins/Lenny Breau): alternating harmonics and regular notes. You may hear Tommy Emmanuel doing lots of these. I also created a variation on this in which one harmonic alternates with two regular notes to get an arpeggiated sound. See my youtube video and instructional on "View From Space".
  • Palm harmonics: touching the node with the side of palm while sweeping downward with the back of the index finger (all with right hand) to get a sweeping chord. If a chord is fretted with the left hand, the right hand follows the shape of the chord 12 frets higher (an original technique some have called "Muriel harmonics").
  • Backward raked harmonics: the opposite direction of the palm harmonics, touching the node with the index finger and sweeping with the ring finger of the right hand.
I also show you many ways you can finger and pluck harmonics and the advantages of each - there are a lot of ways to be efficient and creative to get an effect you want in your music.

Be patient - it may be awkward at first to get these techniques, but it's kind of like riding a bike: once you've got it, you've got it and it's not as hard as it seems at first.

Remember, you can do these techniques on any kind of guitar, the physics are the same.
Level 1: Fingerstyle Harmonics
This etude is going to use all natural harmonics. It'll be in 3/4 time using an E minor chord and a B minor chord all done in harmonics.
Level 1: Fingerstyle Harmonics
Let's take a look at this performance study now and follow along with the tablature. It's always a good idea to use the video tools here to slow down or loop any sections of the performance that you're having trouble with. Play along with this video once you think you have it down.
Level 1: Fingerstyle Harmonics
This simple riff will help you get your natural harmonics technique together. All the harmonics are either on the 12th fret or on the 7th fret, and I show you a few different fingering options. You can use all or parts of this riff in many different songs or in your own music. Be creative with it!
Level 2: Fingerstyle Harmonics
This is a Finnish folk song called "Mansikka" ("Strawberry") that's sung as a round. All of the notes can be played as natural harmonics except for one note that we'll play as a fretted note. You almost can't tell that it's not a harmonic because you're hearing the other harmonics ringing over it. It's a little trick to get regular notes to sound like harmonics.
Level 2: Fingerstyle Harmonics
Let's take a look at this performance study now and follow along with the tablature. It's always a good idea to use the video tools here to slow down or loop any sections of the performance that you are having trouble with. Play along with this video once you think you have it down.

+ 11 more lessons

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Reviews

10 results

euthyphro

04/16/23

Short and sweet intro to harmonics

I've been playing for years but not really gone beyond the harmonics on the 5th, 7th and 12th fret. This was a nice, brief, primer on harmonics. The demo on how to do harmonics on a complete chord was worth the price of entry ($5) alone.

pmorey

Verified buyer

01/08/23

A thorough exploration of harmonics on the guitar, using some very pretty musical examples.

JThompsonUK

12/23/21

Muriel Andersons take 5 Harmonics

I bought this along with a few other courses of Muriel Andersons, recalling having heard of her many years ago via harp guitar community.It is definitely a good intro and food for thought of wehere it could be taken... Inspirational... The course starts with an explanation of what harmonics are, keeping it in language suitable for players. I personally found this section very inspirational and some of the techniques she demonstrates are very cool :) If not mistaken, the opening for one of the lessons is the harmonics opening from Magnum's Kingdom of Madness, I had it confused from Hearts Baracuda but think is former... It is an interesting course that is a good watch to remind a person of the opportunities within composition to add colour and flavour. I also enjoyed her talking and demonstrating the Chet Atkins methods, as I recall seeing some video of Chet and him blowing my mind :) Probably also useful for the modern acoustic thing where people batter their instruments like a drum and get percussive sounds and so on...

zewdaroo

Verified buyer

11/11/21

Excellent information explained clearly and with good humour. Great pieces to practise. Easy way to learn some physics and guitar skills rapidly.

KevDaly

Verified buyer

08/12/21

This is a great introduction to something I've only dealt with at a basic level - it's a bit intimidating at first but Muriel does a good job of demonstrating how to make progress. She's a great teacher and a brilliant guitarist (that's what's intimidating :) )

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