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Harmonics

Natural harmonics

Natural harmonics can be notated in several ways. A diamond-shaped note head generally means to touch the string where you would stop the note if it were not a diamond.

Note: Harmonics must be defined inside a chord construct even if there is only a single note.

Dotted harmonics indicated with \harmonic do not show the dots. The context property harmonicDots should be set if dots are required.

     
     <d\harmonic>4 <e\harmonic>2.
     \set harmonicDots = ##t
     <d\harmonic>4 <e\harmonic>2.

[image of music]

Alternatively a normal note head is shown at the pitch to be sounded together with a small circle to indicate it should be played as a harmonic:

     
     d2^\flageolet d_\flageolet

[image of music]

A smaller circle may be created, see the snippet list in References for unfretted strings.

Artificial harmonics

Artificial harmonics are notated with two notes, one with a normal note head indicating the stopped position and one with an open diamond note head to indicate the harmonic position.

     
     <e a\harmonic>2  <c g'\harmonic>

[image of music]

See also

Music Glossary: harmonics.

Notation Reference: Special note heads, References for unfretted strings.

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