WorshipGuitarist

We’re playing Hillsong’s Mighty to Save this weekend, and I was looking for a way to make that repeated three note lick a little easier on the fingers. If you don’t know it, there’s a pretty big stretch that gets pretty tiring after a while.

Anyway, I was experimenting with some harmonics and stuff when I remembered this little lick I saw in an Eric Johnson lesson a few years ago.

I couldn’t really figure out how to notate it properly in Sibelius, but the way you play this is to tap the harmonics 12 frets higher on the A, D, and G strings, causing them to ring an octave higher (the little diamond symbols in the notation indicate harmonics, btw).

I use hybrid picking to play this kind of thing. I pluck the harmonic notes by holding the pick between my thumb and middle finger and touch the string at the 19th fret with my index finger. I pluck the B and E strings with my ring finger. It’s kinda tricky, but it sounds really cool.

The final product sounds like this (pardon the crappy recording on the built-in mic on my MacBook):

Of course, this doesn’t work at all for Mighty to Save, but it’s still a cool little trick.