The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey all,
I've been wondering this for a while and occasionally I do it while practicing, but how do you pick a string to make it really squeal? I'm not sure how to describe it but I'll paste a video below where the player does it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5c9ZsnGbGI
The timestamp for the squeal is right at 33 seconds into the video.

I'm just wondering how one achieves this sound

Thanks all,
Noah Levy

Just a harmonic.In the vid,the Boss-Tone picks it up and emphasizes it.Players generally get harmonics with their picking hand's third(or fourth) finger,or the side of the picking hand.

Dave Hopping wrote:Just a harmonic.In the vid,the Boss-Tone picks it up and emphasizes it.Players generally get harmonics with their picking hand's third(or fourth) finger,or the side of the picking hand.

I watched it several times and don't see what he's doing, technique-wise, to create the harmonic. Whatever he's doing, it's not something I've done before.

I think it is what I call a pinch. You pinch the string between the thumb and a finger. It's hard to describe, but once you get it you can probably do it forever.

Keep in mind, open, you've got harmonics at the 12th and 19th fret (a couple others too but those are easy) looks like he's using his palm, like palm blocking, to get that higher harmonic.

Sorry, I’ve been playing steel for only 3 years and I kinda understand harmonics but can someone explain what they are and how they are used? Is a harmonic like what is used in sleepwalker? I’m super interested in harnessing their power haha.

https://youtu.be/p-JJBIY2MQ0
This explains it well

Noah,I thought about it some more.Harmonics on steel are nearly always like "artificial harmonics" on a six-string; a string is gently plucked while being just barely touched halfway(usually) between wherever the bar is and the bridge.The note generated is an octave above the regular note,and you're right-the first four single notes of the original "Sleep Walk" are harmonics,although the first note of that phrase is the only one Santo Farina actually plucked-one of the zillion cool aspects of steel guitar is you can slide a harmonic around!

Yeah, I think I get the technique more. It is super tricky but I'll be working on it. Thanks for all the help gentlemen.

Noah Levy

Noah Levy wrote:Yeah, I think I get the technique more. It is super tricky but I'll be working on it. Thanks for all the help gentlemen.

Noah Levy

I assumed that you were talkng about him creating harmonics near the pickup instead of up the neck. I know from experience that drive/distortion helps the harmonics be clear and have volume and sustain... but it must take an incredible amount to have them ring clearly that far up.

I was mainly just trying to figure out what he was doing, but I just sat behind my steel and kinda figured it out. Have no idea how to do it quick enough and clean enough to incorporate into music but it'll take work. I had done it by accident before but now at least I can replicate it.

thats a pinch harmonic.. Somewhere he glanced the plucked string with the side of the pick, or a tiny bit of skin from his finger or hand.. With a distortion device in the chain, they are easy to get. bob

You can see what he's doing at 1:20, plucking with thumb and putting his fingerpick at the harmonic point (I think they're called nodes or something like that)

There's videos by Alex Skolnick etc showing how to find those close to bridge "nodes" and then you can do like Satriani or Van Halen, make whinneying horse noises or whatever.

Bob Carlucci is right on. I spent a little time with this technique this past year. It's a thing guitar players do all the time, and it lends itself to rock, funk, that kind of thing (six days on the road also comes to mind). I use that webbed hand technique that Paul F talks about, so the two fingers on the end of my right hand lightly choke the string I'm picking. Unlike a normal steel harmonic it's not important that you hit the string exactly at the octave or fifth harmonic spot.

The guy in that video is playing a harmonic by touching one of his fingerpicks at the octave location (maybe 2nd octave) on the string while thumbpicking the string. This may be called a type of pinch harmonic, but it is not the same as a pinch harmonic on guitar, which is done by choking up on a flatpick, sliding it back along the thumb, and allowing the edge of the thumb holding the pick to touch the string while picking.

James Shelton does a great job in his video explaining the math and science of harmonics and the techniques to get them on steel, all of which can also be done on guitar.