Harmonics experiment

[ed packard]

There has been a bit of discussion over a period of time about keyless vs keyed, and "desireable and undesireable" harmonics related to string length in general. Here is a little experiment that you can do to see if this is something that you should be worried about.

On my instrument, the distance between the fretboard and the bottom if the strings is a bit less than 7/8 ", ..this means that I can use a 7/8" bar as a capo by inserting it between the strings and the fretboard. By placing the bar at the frets used for open string harmonics, I can see what the effect is upon the tone/sound of the instrument. These frets are 12,5,7,near 4, etc..

Play behind the bar and optimize the sound heard by moving the bar a bit. Play in front of the bar at points 1/2 way, 1/4 way, and 1/3 way between the capo and the bridge, ..do this with and without fingers on the strings behind your bar.

Play around with the variations to see if you do or don't like what you hear and make up your own mind re how much it means to you. If your guitar is keyed, the string length from the nut to the key may be played using the nut as the capo to see how much sound bleeds thru with the strings open, or closed off behind the bar.