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3.2.7Harmonics On Guitar: Hearing String Harmonics Directly
Normally, you do not hear harmonics directly, the way you hear fundamentals. But you can hear for yourself what harmonics sound like.
Try this (if you’re a guitar player, you probably know how to do this):
- If you’re right-handed, pluck the guitar string—the one you tuned to Middle C a few minutes ago—with your right hand. At the same time, with any finger of your left hand, lightly touch the vibrating string just over the 12th fret (over the metal fret itself, not the space between frets).
- What you now hear is a high-pitched note. You have “exposed” the sound of the first overtone by damping (“killing”) the sound of the fundamental. You have effectively cut the string in half, and you can hear both halves vibrating at the same frequency. What you’re hearing is the first overtone of Middle C, vibrating at double the frequency of Middle C.
- The point at which you damped (muffled) the fundamental using your finger is called a node. You can clearly hear the overtone, even though it sounds softer than the fundamental was before you damped it.
- Pluck the string again, but this time, lightly stop the string over the seventh fret. Now you hear a completely different overtone. It’s even higher-pitched than the first one. And it’s softer. It’s the second overtone.
- Pluck the string again. This time, lightly stop the string over the fifth fret. Yet another, even softer overtone. So soft, you can barely hear it. The third overtone.
You can keep doing this, teasing out even higher, fainter overtones.