In theory, and according to the chart below, the B should be available on fret 7 on string 6, the A also fret 7 on string 4, F# also fret 7 on string 2, then ok, maybe that G natural is not available.
I’m also aware that there is a plethora of ways to write harmonics for guitar —and I would appreciate anyone pointing out a reliable resource.
I’m quite confident that most if not all this sounds are impossible as resulting pitches and harmonic sounds, so they must be touch natural harmonics?
Finally, let’s imagine one would have these as fixed point for the touch-4th harmonics (sounding 2 octaves above like on the cello, my instrument), would that make sense as notation? If not, how should one write those?
PS: I once stumbled upon a specialist guitar website that claimed that for any given resulting note there were more than 200 ways of writing it as a harmonic on guitar (and they went on listing them one by one …).
There are myriad ways to notate harmonics on the guitar. I don’t engrave much guitar music in Dorico but it appears it prefers sounding rather than at pitch (as do I when I play). If you are obligated to notate them a certain way, just turn off the String Harmonics category in proofreading.
I also prefer that, but I got some quite impolite reactions one year ago from one guitarist to whom I tried to correct the notation that I now prefer to ask!
Yes, Dorico will flag a guitar harmonic in the wrong octave. The notation you have above is quite common (or was), and over the years the trend has been towards notating the sound of the harmonic, as opposed to its geography on the fingerboard. It has been a fluid situation for a while, now - you will get arguments from both sides! And, it should be added, that there are differences between classical guitar notation and other styles; add to that tablature - which, in a way, is what you have in your “old” score, and you can see the difficulties.
I can say - as a guitarist - I prefer notation of the correct pitch. As there are (often) many options for a harmonic, the clearest thing to do is to notate the pitch, as well as fret and string.
In your first posted example, for instance, my first instinct would be to play each note one octave higher - either at the 7th fret, or as “artificial” harmonics, barring the 2nd fret, and striking the strings one octave higher (14th fret).
Whichever notation you choose, include the fret and string, and everything will be ok!
Thank you so much! This makes perfect sense! I will edit the music at once.
It is interesting how, with strings music, natural harmonics knowledge has been quite lost because it is not widely and regularly taught. We therefore veered to showing where a natural harmonic should be played and we would then possibly add the sounding pitch (possibly to avoid clef changes in cello and viola at least).
THIS!
This is the guy who talked about 200+ ways! Thanks!
As a string player I greatly prefer when the sounding pitch is notated since there are multiple ways to finger most partials, and at least in a section there can either be some confusion as to what the desired pitch actually is or certain locations can be more temperamental than others.
