Bending a Harmonic?

[geoffkhan]

I didn't read all the posts to this thread, but here's how I slide/bend a harmonic:

1. Play an artifical harmonic like normal, and then use your fretted finger to bend the note up like usual. Make sure the hand you used to pluck the harmonic is away from the string.

2. Play an artifical harmonic, and then slide your fretting hand up the string, while moving the finger on your right hand you're using to touch the harmonic spot. You want to move your right hand at just the right rate to compensate for the left hand.

 

[Charling]

hmm, yeah, but bending an ARTIFICIAL harmonic is different, cos your left hand finger and your right hand thumb are doing what the nut and your left finger do with natural harmonics (Respectively) so you can bend it by just doing a normal string bend. Sorry, I didn't word that very well...

bending a natural harmonic is harder but can be done, If you play the harmonic and then pull the string down using the same finger. you have to shift the point of contact to the top of the string do be able to bend it sufficiently. its awkward because if your not careful you'll dampen the string or let it touch the fretboard, you need to use just the tip of your finger, and it works best on the highest string because youv'e got alot more space to bend it, if you see what I mean..

 

[Stephen Soto]

bending artificial harmonics are easy. just bending the string like you normally would.

 

[bill_banwell]

Ok i saw this bass day 1998 victor wooten set... and what he did in amazing grace was slide the harmonic up and down.. from the 5th to the 7th back up to the 5th very quickly.. its pretty hard..

and someone explain to me what the difference is between a artificial and a natural harmonic?..

 

[Aaron Saunders]

It's definitely easiest to learn how to do sliding harmonics if you SEE someone do it -- I saw my bass teacher do it once and it was way easier than learning by vague textual descriptions. I learned it on a fretless, but I found it really easy to transfer it even to fretted. I spent a little bit of time (not an exceedingly large amount) but I can now slide natural harmonics with my left hand (both normal plucked, and tapped -- now that was a doozy) and my right hand (thumb/index finger and pinky plucked, and tapped). Playing techniques are infinitely easier to learn with a visual reference -- try and find someone around you that can do it and learn it from them. IME, harmonics are far more to do with technique and pickups than with the presence or absence of frets. I found the p-bass pickup on my fretted doesn't pick harmonics up NEARLY as well as the single coils on my fretless or the MIA Jazz at a local store.

I find the word closest to what you do with your left hand hand to be "caressing". Don't push it down to the fret, or slide. Caress.

PS: Once you get pretty fair at it, try sliding natural harmonic double-stops (for instance, the fifth fret of the A string and the seventh fret of the D string -- then try the 7th and 9th!). Definitely interesting to do.

PPS: On the subject of "weird noises", I've managed to find a pretty easy way to make a bass sound like a whale. Put your fingers right in front of the nut and hit a muted E and A where they get a sustaining thud, and then slide the seventh fret of the D string up a whole step, and the 9th fret of the G string down a whole step nice and slow. Works great with reverb and delay!