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Adding Natural Harmonics: Bass Lines With Jaime Vazquez
Greetings! Hope you’re grooving a lot my friends! For this issue, we’re going to work with natural harmonics.
How do you play a natural harmonic? It’s easy; just barely touch the first string right above the 5th fret with your first finger (left hand). After you play the string you will hear a “bell like” tone. That’s it! The most common natural harmonics are played at the 5th, 7th, and 12th frets of the bass guitar. Of course, there are other techniques for playing harmonics. But we’ll concentrate on the natural harmonic for this lesson.
Here’s an example of one of my bass lines for an original composition (just click on the PDF link below to view). As you can see, I’m playing the roots, but for the fifth and the octave I’m playing the natural harmonics. Try it! It sounds interesting, and smooth!
Lift your left hand finger off right after you pluck the string. That will give you a louder and more clearly defined sound. Enjoy!
Bassline_with_Natural_Harmonics-Oct09