How to Play Pinch Harmonics on the Guitar - Steve Stine Guitar Lesson

Hey , Steve Stein from Guitar Zoom here and I've had a lot of requests to , to uh talk about uh pinch harmonics .

So I thought real quick , what I would do is just show you um how I do them and that they are or might be different than you think they are .

Um I always used to think pinch harmonics were like you got to bite into the string and all this sort of thing and uh you really don't .

Um what it really comes down to is just the technique that you're using with your guitar pick .

So , what I wanna do is before I actually show you the technique , I want you to hear something that I think is kind of cool here .

So if I just go up to the , uh I'm tuned down a half step right now .

But if I go up to the seventh of the fifth straight , just play that note and I pick it a little bit harder .

Now , all I'm doing is just picking the string .

But what I want you to hear , if you can listen very closely , you're gonna hear a bit of that harmonic uh tone changing in the background as I pick this string .

And I'm not even doing anything other than just picking the string .

OK .

That's what we want to grasp on to , to get our harmonic .

So what we're gonna do this is a pinch harmonic , of course .

So what we're gonna do is if you think about it , what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna turn the guitar pick .

So my thumb , the flesh of my thumb is gonna touch that string .

So as soon as I pick through the string , the last thing to touch the string is going to be the flesh of my thumb .

Now , I'm not picking hard , I'm not doing a vibrato or anything like that .

I'm just turning the guitar pick here's normal years .

Now , if I push in just a little bit more with the , the pick as I play through it , you can see that the , that pinch harmonic starts really becoming prominent .

OK .

So the trick for you is now again , we'll talk about tone and all that sort of thing in just a second .

But the trick is , is to understand that when you turn that guitar pick and your , the flesh of your thumb touches the string right after you're done .

Now , I don't stay there .

You know , I leave .

Obviously , I'm not , I'm not staying there , but the string would die .

So as soon as I get the harmonic now again , I'll pick it normally .

Now turn the pick , I'll turn my fingers so I'm touching the key .

Now , push in a little .

So when I push it , I mean , I'm , I'm really biting that string , but I don't need to , I mean , I can just turn the p and get some harmonics .

OK .

But if I , but if I push in a little bit , I get a bit more .

Ok .

Now , what I want you to notice is how , as I move across the guitar with my pick , I'm getting different harmonics .

OK ?

Now please understand that the guitar that you're using , especially the pickups , the output of your pickups , um how hot they are and the distortion that you have on your guitar makes a difference in how easy it is to get these harmonics .

Now , you can get harmonics off of an acoustic guitar .

There's no doubt about it , but it's harder than it would be if you just had higher output pickups and you know , distortion , the right amount of distortion .

And again , I'm not gonna tell you what the right amount is because everybody's different , but it does make a difference .

So when I go to play , OK , I know where I'm gonna be .

Now , for me , I normally pick right around the middle position pickup .

That's where I get the majority of my arm .

But I am aware that if I move around a little bit , I'm gonna get different kinds of marks .

OK ?

Now , the vibrato that I'm doing and stuff is just to enhance the situation .

But it's , it's really not adding to the , the actual harmonic , in my opinion .

Anyway , so the big thing here is to start off by just learning how to get that harmonic sound right .

So you're just , you're picking , normally you start moving , I can kind of hear those overtones back there .

I can hear that , that harmonic change .

OK .

So then what I'm gonna do is turn that pick and turning it up , just kind of looking around finding the right spot that I can do this in .

I've got emg pickups on here .

So it's pretty easy to do these just about anywhere uh with these picks , but that's how you do it .

OK .

So step one exploring a little bit right .

Step two , the big step is to turn .

So the , when the pick goes through and the pick is picking at an angle , my thumb is the last thing to touch the flesh of my thumb is the last thing to touch .

Now , I'm basically kind of touching on the side of my , my thumb right here .

If you can see that , that's kind of where it's happening .

Um But it might be different for you , but that's where my , my pinch is happening from the pinch harmonic .

And then what I can do is just explore where the best place is on my guitar to get that sound .

So it takes a little bit , you just have to be patient .

Um , but I'm sure you'll find it and then just understand that you can enhance the harmonic with , you know , proper , you know , pick or well , pick two , I suppose .

Uh but certainly proper , um , um , pick ups , you know , distortion , things like that .

And please understand that , you know , somebody will say , well , I can get it without much distortion .

You can , you can get pinch harmonics , like I said , on an acoustic guitar .

But if you're looking for ease of use and you watch the players that you might like that use pinch harmonics , look at the gear they're using , look at how much distortion they're using when they do it .

Um You know , and again , of course , you can do it without uh distortion , but distortion is going to add uh the functionality of that and make it easier for you to do .

So , hopefully that helps you a little bit .

Have a wonderful day .

Keep practicing , uh stay positive and I'll talk to you soon .