what the hell are harmonics?

[AnUprightMan]

I know how to do a harmonic and read it of tab
but what actually makes a harmonic work or what is the actuall theory behind it.

[cyberfret]

There is some more information about natural harmonics in this lesson here at cyberfret.com

http://www.cyberfret.com/techniques/harmonics/natural/



Here are a couple of other explanations that you might check out as well.

http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/harmonics.html

http://www-ec.njit.edu/~mjv3649/Guitar_Hormonics.htm


--Shawn

[GuitarGuillermo]

Harmonics are...

something that is hard to understand, basically, sound waves vibrate at a certain frequency, and some frequencies are mathematically related to each other, thier wavelenghts are fractions or multiples of one another.

If you look on the right places on the net, you can find people who think harmonics are the cause of everything from supernatural healing powers to telekinesis. This is because harmonics are something that is easy to misuderstand but sounds scientific when you talk aboutit, even if you don't know what your talking about.

Interestingly enough though, harmonic resonances ARE responsible for many fascinating phenomena. for instance, in orbital frequencies (not sound frequencies) harmonic resonances are responsible for the gaps in the asteroid belt and the rings of saturn. when the orbit of a larger body such as jupiter (in the case of the asteroids) or a moon (in the case of saturns rings) orbits with a period harmonic to that of a certain distance from the body orbited, it's repeated gravitational pull will over time remove all smaller particles from that area, leaving empty bands. this really has nothign to do with guitar anymore, so i'll shut up.

[GuitarGuillermo]

to bring it back together, the points on the guitar where you get harmonics form the strings are fractional points, for instance, you divide the string into halves, or into one third and two thirds. these fractonally related parts of the string vibrate in a harmonic resonance with one another, producing the harmonic tones.

anyway, this is the best i can do to explain harmonics. I've probably just been confusing, though, so you should probably check out shawns links.

[AnUprightMan]

thanks for the help, that is some crazy ****.

[AnUprightMan]

I forgot about the swear word thing that is some crazy stuff.

[Sandman_96707]

If I understand correctly (probably don't) , most sounds produce harmonics but are rarely heard because of other stuff playing over it. The guitar is the greatest example of harmonics there is.