Hey Mike,

I really enjoyed your guitar workshop on harmonics. Great stuff! I have a follow-up question. When one is playing a harmonic, natural or otherwise, you're basically placing a 3rd node into the string (i.e., in addition to the nodes at the nut and the bridge) and at every other point that along the string that is a multiple of the distance between the nut and where you are playing the harmonic. So if you play a harmonic at the 5th fret on a 24" scale length guitar, you are putting a node 6 inches from the nut to produce an octave of the open string, and that will also give you nodes 12 inches from the nut, and 18 inches until you get to the bridge. That makes me think that one is working at cross purposes if plucking the string at those nodal positions (say 6 inches in front of the bridge) because I would think that wherever you pluck to set the string in motion, that is going to be an anti-node. That is, you are both putting the string in motion and also trying to have it not be in motion at that point. To test this, I tried playing harmonics on the 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 12th frets while plucking at different positions along the string. The results were sort of consistent with what I'm saying, but certainly not conclusive. Anyway, I guess if I were going to boil this down to one question, I'm wondering if you or other accomplished players try to pick at any particular point when playing harmonics or do you basically not worry about it and strike the string wherever your hand happens to be.

Thanks,

Dave