By Hodaka Hashi
Plucking behind the nut is a technique used by many guitarists to get a feedback like sound. Although it is not a conventional technique, it can be used to further widen the different sounds you can produce with your guitar.
The technique is very simple – all you need to do is to pluck the strings behind the nut – this should be done quite hard.
Note that:
- You should not be touching the strings when you do this.
- This works best with distortion.
- This will obviously NOT work with guitars with locking nuts as shown below:
This effect works especially well with a pitch shifter and distortion. Try the following method if you have a pitch shifter; it’s a great method of introducing the guitar into a song.
- Set the pitch shifter so that the foot pedal varies the pitch from normal to 2 octaves above normal.
- Turn the volume knob on the guitar down all the way.
- Set the foot pedal to the position so that it is 2 octaves above normal.
- Pluck the strings behind the nut hard.
- Gradually turn up the volume knob until it is up full.
- Shift the pitch back to normal (from 2 octaves above) using the foot pedal.
- Want to improve your guitar playing?
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These lessons have been written by me, a guitar enthuthiast. I've written them to the best of my abilities, but I'm no guitar teacher!
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