Joe's Harmonic Finder Chart

Ever have trouble figuring out where to play certain harmonics you hear in a song? Well, about 20 years ago, I used my computer to figure out where they all are (up to about the 10th harmonic). Off and on, over the years, I've toyed with different ways of representing the information in a way that is easiest to use. This is the best way I know of so far...

First step is to figure out the actual notes of the harmonics. You do this by finding fretted notes which give the same notes you hear in the harmonics you're trying to duplicate. For example, the opening harmonics in Rush's "Red Barchetta" can be played with fretted notes like so:

Now, we need to figure out what those actual note names are. In music, not only do the notes have letter values, but they have number values, which indicate the octave, with each octave starting with C. So, a chromatic scale starting on A4 would look like:

Okay, so what are the notes on the guitar fretboard? They're shown in the table below:

Now, at this point, you should be able to hand those notes to a piano player and he/she should be able to play them for you right off the bat. So far, so good. Now, we can use the table to find the places where each note can be played. To find where to find the first note, the G5, we look down the left-column to find the note. Each column to the right has the places where you can play it on the E string, the A string, D string, etc. One column per string, until you get to the high-E on the right.

So, looking down the table for G5, we find that it can only be played in one spot: 12th fret on the G string (which is what the "12.0 (0%)" means).

A quick note about how this table is notated. You'll notice that there are two odd things about this table. First, the fret numbers have decimals. This is because, except for the first 3 harmonics, they're not found directly over frets. They're somewhere in between. The decimals represent that. So, a fret number of "4.4" would be almost half-way between the 4th and 5th frets. A fret number of "3.2" would be just about 20% of the way up from the 3rd fret toward the 4th.

The second oddity is that there's a percent value in parentheses. This is how far off the harmonic is from the note it's closest to. For example, look at the harmonic for G#6. You can play that at frets 1.8, 2.0, 6.2, and 20.8 on the low-E string. However, that note is going to be about 14% out of tune from a true G#6. Now, before you get any funny ideas, don't think that you can just move your finger a little up or down the string to get it into tune. Harmonics don't work like that. A fretless guitar would, but harmonics are actually different ways of "exciting" the string. That out-of-tuneness is what you get. However, with some of the notes, you can play them with different harmonics on different strings, so you might be able to get a note which is a little more in-tune. For example, look at D6. You can play it at fret 2.7 on the low-E string and have a 32% error in the pitch of the note, or you can play it at the 5th fret on the D string and have it be perfect.

Now, back to our Red Barchetta phrase. The first note, the G5 is played at the 12th fret on the G string. The other 3 notes of the first part of the phrase, E5 A5 A4, can be found at:

E5: low-E-string at the 5th or 24th fret or A-string at the 7th or 19th fret.
A5: A-string at the 5th or 24th fret or D-string at the 7th or 19th fret.
A4: A-string at 12th fret.

The key takeaway, here, is that we could play this phrase in a lot of different ways. We could be playing the E5 and the A5 in four different locations, giving us 16 different ways to play it. But the way every budding guitar player learns it is:

Okay, so now we get to the whole reason I made these tables in the first place. You see, sonny, when I was you're age, nobody had the tablature showing the places to play the other half of the phrase. So, let's see what that comes out to.

It turns out that the 5th, 6th, and 7th notes are the same as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, so we only need to figure out 5 notes, total: C#6, D6, G6, A5, andF#6.

C#6: Frets 3.9, 8.8, or 15.9 on the A
D6: Frets 2.7, 5.8, 9.7, 14.7, or 21.7 on the low-E, frets 5 or 24 on the D or frets 7 or 19 on the G
G6: Frets 2.7, 5.8, 9.7, 14.7, or 21.7 on the A, or frets 5 or 24 on the G
A5: Frets 5 or 24 on the A or frets 7 or 19 on the D
F#6: Frets 4.4, 10.2, or 14.0 on the low-E, frets 3.9, 8.8, or 15.9 on the D, or frets 7 or 19 on the B.

Now, you should kinda try some of these out in their various positions, just to prove to yourself that the notes really can be played in all of those different places. But you'll realize that all of these notes can be played pretty much between the 4th and 5th frets:

C#6: Fret 3.9 on the A
D6: Fret 5 on the D
G6: Fret 5 on the G
A5: Fret 5 on the A
F#6: Fret 3.9 on the D or frets 7 on the B.

I leave two options for the F#6 for a reason. When I first used this table to figure out the harmonics, I assumed that he was playing fret 3.9 on the D because he's already playing fret 3.9 on the A, so his fingers are already there. It makes the riff extremely easy to play:

However, every tablature that you see published, these days, plays that note up at the 7th fret on the B....

I figured everyone else had it wrong, since Alex was much more-likely to stumble across that note at 3.9 (since it's one string over from a harmonic that he's already using). Alas, checking YouTube shows that this is how Alex Lifeson plays it, as well. So, I'm now betting that even Alex doesn't realize that he could be playing that last note at 3.9.

Anyway, that's my harmonic-finder table. Use it for the good of mankind. You can make printouts of it for your personal use, but you may not publicly display it (or any derivations of it) without my permission.

	E	A	D	G	B	e
G#8						1.8 2.0 6.2 20.8 (14%)
F#8						4.4 10.2 14.0 (4%)
E8						2.3 8.1 17.0 (0%)
D#8					1.8 2.0 6.2 20.8 (14%)
D8						2.7 5.8 9.7 14.7 21.7 (32%)
C#8					4.4 10.2 14.0 (4%)
B7				1.8 2.0 6.2 20.8 (14%)	2.3 8.1 17.0 (0%)	3.2 (2%)
A7				4.4 10.2 14.0 (4%)	2.7 5.8 9.7 14.7 21.7 (32%)
G#7						3.9 8.8 15.9 (14%)
G7				2.3 8.1 17.0 (0%)
F#7			1.8 2.0 6.2 20.8 (14%)		3.2 (2%)
F7				2.7 5.8 9.7 14.7 21.7 32%)
E7			4.4 10.2 14.0 (4%)			5.0 24.0 (0%)
D#7					3.9 8.8 15.9 (14%)
D7			2.3 8.1 17.0 (0%)	3.2 (2%)
C#7		1.8 2.0 6.2 20.8 (14%)
C7			2.7 5.8 9.7 14.7 21.7 (32%)
B6		4.4 10.2 14.0 (4%)		3.9 8.8 15.9 (14%)	5.0 24.0 (0%)	7.0 19.0 (2%)
A6		2.3 8.1 17.0 (0%)	3.2 (2%)
G#6	1.8 2.0 6.2 20.8 (14%)
G6		2.7 5.8 9.7 14.7 21.7 (32%)		5.0 24.0 (0%)
F#6	4.4 10.2 14.0 (4%)		3.9 8.8 15.9 (14%)		7.0 19.0 (2%)
E6	2.3 8.1 17.0 (0%)	3.2 (2%)				12.0 (0%)
D6	2.7 5.8 9.7 14.7 21.7 (32%)		5.0 24.0 (0%)	7.0 19.0 (2%)
C#6		3.9 8.8 15.9 (14%)
B5	3.2 (2%)				12.0 (0%)
A5		5.0 24.0 (0%)	7.0 19.0 (2%)
G#5	3.9 8.8 15.9 (14%)
G5				12.0 (0%)
E5	5.0 24.0 (0%)	7.0 19.0 (2%)
D5			12.0 (0%)
B4	7.0 19.0 (2%)
A4		12.0 (0%)
E3	12.0 (0%)
Copyright 2012 - Joe Emenaker (joe@emenaker.com)