Bass Harmonics – Left Hand Technique

A while ago, I got a great question from a Become A Bassist email subscriber named Di who wanted to know about bass harmonics. She wrote:

“I have a question about bass harmonics.  I’ve seen many bass players throw them in here and there – but I don’t know how to do it. What’s the technique for getting the harmonics out? And what notes do you end up with? Nobody seems to cover this aspect of bass playing (that I’ve seen anyway)

Hope you can help”

– Di from Cape Town

I love this question! Bass harmonics are a whole bunch of fun. They let you play far beyond your ‘regular‘ range which means you can start to play beautiful melodies, chords, and even entire solo pieces in the range of the human voice.

This means you can create some really awe-inspiring music that will really connect with other people.

However, bass harmonics aren’t the easiest things to get a handle on – in fact, they can be quite tricky! Di’s email inspired me to create not one, but three lessons all about bass harmonics.

The first step to playing these beautiful, singing sounds is sorting out the technique you’ll need to pull these harmonics out of your bass.

In this lesson, you’ll learn:

• Exactly what harmonics are
• The best left hand technique for creating these sounds
• The two most common mistakes people make when they start trying to play these bass harmonics and how to avoid them

Check it out here.

Video Not Showing Up? Watch On YouTube Here

Now like I said earlier, this technique is only the first step towards being really comfortable using these harmonics.

You also have to know how to use your right hand to create a beautiful sound and you’ll also need to know what notes you have available to you when you are using these harmonics. You can check out lesson 2 and 3 in this free series very soon.

By the way, when Di first asked this question, I sent a fairly long email explaining the process of playing with harmonics in the hope that it would help. When I emailed her later and asked if I could use her question as the basis of a video lesson, this is what she said:
This is awesome! Di actually started using bass harmonics to create her own music! For many of us, this is the ultimate goal – to use new techniques and new concepts to make music. You can do the exact same thing.

If that’s something you want to be able to do, make sure to download The Ultimate Guide To Bass Harmonics. It’s filled with everything you need to know to start creating melodies, chords and your very own solo pieces right now. Plus it’s a ton of fun.

Just put your first name and email address in the form below to get started.

Good luck with the lesson and happy playing!