[interyeti]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Welcome to the forum. Interesting first post. Clear upper harmonics are easiest using a pick, touch points on the string
near the bridge, and picking near the midpoint of the length of the string between the touch point and the bridge.

Let the music play.

In the clips I provided, I am touching everything you hear on the part of the string over the fretboard. Because of this, I am able to maximize flexibility, tone quality and control. By resorting to only touching near the bridge, you sacrifice all these things*. That may be enough if you have amplification or if you don't care about necessarily getting the best possible quality of sound. But if do not put the hard work into making the wave-fractions vibrate at all resonant locations along the length of the string and rely on shortcuts, you're not gaining in precision or quality of touch on your instrument. Now, this has clearly not been a problem for guitarists thus far---again, artificial harmonics are sufficient for most peoples' songwriting needs---aren't they? But, given the evidence I have provided, I still feel compelled (and justified) to say: easy does not mean sufficient.

If anyone takes issue with what I am saying, I would be delighted if you could either post or PM me a demonstration of the first eight natural harmonics (or even higher if you're really good) with the same or better quality of tone and control as what I have provided in the clips in my initial post to show me why my thinking and attitude are misguided (again, on the highest string of an unamplified acoustic guitar).

Finally, I want to emphasize that I'm not trying to be offensive and I'm not saying that anyone is less of a musician for not being able to do what I can do (when it comes to harmonics)...this isn't even a taught skill! The significance of what I'm demonstrating seems to be initially lost on most people without more thorough explanation except for guitar players with over 30 years of experience---those guys' ears prick up. I was just hoping I could get a wider conversation going. Maybe that's not possible.

*OK, maybe you want to touch near the bridge sometimes. I'm not saying that the points near the bridge are illegitimate, I'm saying that if that's the only place you can get the higher harmonics, you're likely not as skilled at getting the higher harmonics as you think you are. I'm arguing that in order to say that you've really thoroughly developed this skill, you need to be able get the harmonics at all the nodal positions along the length of the string. You can't say that's impossible or impractical when I've provided clips incontrovertibly demonstrating otherwise.