Harmonics
A harmonic is a chime-like tone produced by lightly touching a string with a finger and then removing the finger at the instant the string is plucked. There are two types of harmonics, natural and artificial. Both types may be created in Tabledit by highlighting a note and applying the desired effect. This can be applied by selecting the appropriate effect from the Special effects dialog. To reproduce the chime-like sound during playback, we recommend that the dynamic value of harmonics be set one to two levels lower than the base setting.
Natural harmonics are played on open strings with the most common being at the 5th, 7th and 12th frets. Other natural harmonics can be played at the 3rd, 4th, 9th and 16th frets but the tone quality is poor and difficult to produce in actual playing conditions. The graphic at the right shows the notes that are produced by playing natural harmonics on the 5th, 7th and 12th frets. Note the small diamond to the right of the numbers in the tablature indicating a natural harmonic. |
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Artificial harmonics are played by fretting a string normally with the left hand and then touching the string with a right hand finger generally 12 frets higher on the fretboard and using another right-hand finger or the thumb to pick the string. |
The right-hand finger is removed at the instant the string is plucked while the left hand maintains its position on the fretted string. The sound produced is exactly one octave higher than the normal pitch of the fretted note. Note the small filled diamond to the right of the numbers in the tab indicating an artificial harmonic.
Note: In order to set another offset than the octave, select the note to be affected and press [>] or [<] to cycle through the available harmonics. TablEdit will then recalculate the note pitch and will display a small AH plus fret (i.e. "A.H.9") above the note. Note: When adding a tied note to one with either of the two above mentioned harmonic effects applied, the same effect should also be applied to the tied note. If you don't, the tied note won't produce the correct sound. |
Note: It should be mentioned that, the pitch displayed for harmonics (both natural and artificial) varies depending from where the effect is applied. If it's applied from the Special effects palette or from the left-hand column of the Special effects dialog, the actual pitch is displayed.
If, however, you apply it from the right-hand column (Combination) of the dialog while leaving the left-hand column set to "No effect" the note will be displayed one octave lower than its actual pitch. To achieve the same display with the normal "Natural Harmonic", click the "8va" button after applying the effect.
This possibility is useful to avoid the additional lines and to facilitate the reading of the notation. You can insert a musical symbol "8va" into the top of the note or type the text "%8va" which will post this same symbol followed of a dotted line to the top of the concerned notes. Syntax is the same one as for barrés.