Harping Technique

Get an acoustic, preferably a nylon, and with no other fingers touching the string, tap one of the high strings at a high fret, say 17 for example. You may notice that you hear two pitches. Why? Because what is going on is you have made the string vibrate between the bridge and the fret, but also behind your finger; between the fret behind your finger and the nut.

Now try this. On the high 'E' string, fret the note at the 9th fret and pick the string with your right hand, behind the left, I. e: between the fretted note and the nut. You will notice a high, harplike pitch, hence the name 'harping'. Experiment with different fret positions, different strings, different types of string, different types of guitars, effects, techniques, and so on, and you can get some cool effects.

Comments

[godofrythm]

thanx dude i didn't knew earlier.

[JC Rea]

Thanks; you've solved one of my biggest doubts
abour guitar.

JC Rea

[Calvin]

wha?

[SERGIO..1]

I DON'T UNDERSTAND BACAUSE I SPEAK LITTLE ENGLISH!! JA JA JA JE JE

[Drifting__Bluez]

thank God .... i found this site

[JaMeZtEr]

Isn't it called "tapping"?

[Sum41DudeRob]

thnx man

[the fendernator]

well FAN MY BROW that lesson was AWESOME lol

[chriswanker]

A couple of things-
the Harp Harmonic works best if you fret a note, and then tap the fret 12 frets above the fretted note.
so if you're holding a note on the fifth fret, tap the 17th.

Second, this technique, in my humble opinion, actually sounds better on a highly distorted electric- the harmonic really screams if you hit it right. In one of my band's songs, myself and the other guitarist do a double solo, and we both nail a harp harmonic, me on 5/17 on the e string, him on 6/18 on the b string, which results in a nice F diad, in a Dmin context.
(raises the horns \m/)

[jetman_james]

sorry chris. you are talking about tapping the string and holding the pitch. together with your other guitarist you may produce a harp-like sound but the lesson refers to the fret behind the tapped fret (i.e.-5th fret tap-the 4th fret is behind the tap) creating a sound from the vibration of the string spanning the distance from the nut to the tapped fret when held out. when you play and pick the strings normally only the area past the fret vibrates, but when you hammer-on or tap you vibrate the whole string. you may not notice because the pick-ups or the air-hole doesnt amplify the sound of it. this is how a guitar works mechanically. makes sense, right?

[jetman_james]

also, if you place a pick-up under the neck of your guitar(say, the 5th fret) and tap a fret past the 5th fret you would hear the backside of the string. you could do this on an acoustic if you were going to convert it to electric and had the hardware to try this experiment.

[blair900]

with the tapping thing, try fretting a string (say 17) with your right hand and tapping above it (eg 8 and 10) with your left for some cool effects, this only works on an accoustic though as the pick-ups aren't below the vibration.

[Corwinoid]

Kicking a dead horse here... if you dick with the release timing enough you can get a resonanting harping on an electric. You can also, at certain frets, get mutual resonation between the strings, harping an electric. Don't try to incorporate it unless you plan to go deaf--you have to have it pretty juiced to pick anything up so when you hit a real note it's just done. Ask me how I know...

--C

[l0ssOfHuman1ty]

interesting..

[Lord_Hondros]

hmmmmm. It's called tapping dude. although it's pretty cool. Also, try and research stuff to make a longer tut first.

[The4thHorsemen]

I discovered this myself a while back, for example, playing the 12th fret normally is the same pitch as fretting the 13th but picking it behind your fretting hand

[leadg]

i think some people are confusing artificial harmonics, and tapping with this technique. i'm pretty sure it is only obtainable on an acoustic. i think tapping on acoustic is impossible for this reason actually cuz it picks up the two notes your talking about in this lesson instead of just one. please correct me if im wrong...

[redhavok]

this is horrible. this isnt a lesson. its like saying "this one time, my pick hit the strings...on my guitar and went breeeooownnnngg!"

jesus freakn christ...

[darkload]

I think half of the people understand what the lesson was about and half don't. I do, and while this is something I haven't really heard of, it's unfortunately not very useful because as far as I know the sound from the string length behind the fretted finger isn't going to reach the pickups on electric or the soundhole on an acoustic, and so you'll have trouble recording it properly. This is of course as I sit at the library computer with my guitar at home, and I don't own an acoustic yet, so who knows, maybe you have something here.

[clwnz]

This isn't tapping. Some people need to learn how to read. You should especially read jetman_james comments (read farther up). But if you're too lazy... basically:
When you tap (lets say..) the 5th fret of a guitar (hear it more in an acoustic with nylon strings.. as it said in the "tut"..) the string vibrates to make a sound (DUH!). Think now. Divide the string in two on the fret you just tapped. Those two halves (or whatever you want to call them) are BOTH vibrating, but the (half of the)string over the pickups/soundhole is going to sound louder, which of course is what you're going to hear. If you put pickups on the other half of the string, you would also hear the sound it made.
Thats how I explain it... hope it helps..

[clwnz]

Also:
t
E|----5-----|
~~~~|~~~~~(~~~~~)~~~

t- tap
5- fifth fret
~- string vibration
( )- soundhole thing
|- division of the string.

[clwnz]

!!!!! pissed. now.

[Nirvana11_3]

that's pretty cool