Pinch Harmonics on Bass

[inspire thy...]

Hey all, I was just watching one of Billy Sheehans many vidos on Youtube, and I noticed he did this sort of pinch harmonic thing...

Does anyone here know how to do such a thing?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Simon

[nubs]

i am pretty sure he explains how he does this in one of his instructional videos, which i thought both (that i saw) were pretty good. i think you can even buy both volumes on one dvd as well....pretty decent stuff even if your not a big sheehan fan. IMO

[inspire thy...]

I am poor... where could I find something on the internet?

[Darsh]

Sheehan usually does tapped harmonics. To do tap harmonics, all you do is press down the string at a certain fret, then lightly tap the string at a spot that is 4, 5, 7, 9, or 12 frets from the fretted note. So if you fret 3 on the A string, you could get a harmonic from frets 6, 5, 9, 11, or 15. You can find all kinds of harmonics if you just play around with it. Perhaps someone can explain it better than I can.

[Herrlster]

The way I do them is I use my thumb to dampen the strings at a certain area on the string and pluck with my index finger. Like say I'm fretting the 5th fret with my left hand, I take my right hand and place my thumb on the string directly over the 17th fret (the octave) and pluck with my index finger.

[Jkfielder]

hmmm, i suggest you buy his advanced bass instructional book / dvd thats where i learned, theres 2 things you need to do to have pinchs that sound like billys first one is;

lots of distortion so that the pinch can cut through

2nd one is the actual pinching :P take your thumb and place it on your index and middle finger like you had a pinch of salt or like your about 'click' your right hand now you gently rest your index and a part of your thumb over a harmonic area where you finger pick (on a fender jazz i find the easiest place is over the back pickup) then you use your middle fingernail to get a rough attack on the string in the same way that a guitarist who is pinching uses a pick.

it might sound complicated and it took me a while to get it but after a bit of practice you will have it down, you can use tapped harmonics for a very similar effect as well and they are alot easier to do in my experiance :P

[SLaPiNFuNK]

posted in another thread...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdCWbNWVCeI

[Major Havoc]

and some serious compression helps make the pich harmonic ring through....

[inspire thy...]

This is great stuff - I will try this tonight at band practice and let you know how I went.

[haloonpc]

Oh you mean false harmonics, right?