When playing a guitar, the higher up the fretboard you play, the higher the note. How come the reverse is true when playing the Harmonics (The next harmonic up the fretboard is a lower note than the previous)?
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You can ask r/LearnGuitar.
I wish I could give you an actual answer but it seems the more I learn to play the guitar the less I understand about theory.
It is because the string itself doesn’t have a specific orientation. All it does is vibrate a particular way at any given length. The design of the guitar is to isolate the vibrations towards one particular side.
If you place a thin round object on the string above the 12th fret, you can pluck the string on either side of that object and the note will be roughly the same. This is because you are in the dead center of the string length. Move it closer towards the nut, but pluck on the side closest to the nut, the notes will get higher, as you move in the frets of the usual lower register. Again, it is shortening the length of vibrating string.
The harmonics activate on an open string. It is determined by the length of string where it is induced. A harmonic 3 inches from the nut will be exactly the same as a harmonic 3 inches from the saddle.
First let’s establish that frequency (how many waves in a period of time) and wavelength (how long the waves are) are inversely proportional, meaning as wavelength decreases, frequency increases. If you’ve also ever seen a visual representation of a wave, you’ll know that the wave goes back and forth, but crosses the middle/zero. When you fret a note, you are essentially making the string shorter, increasing the frequency of vibration, making the pitch higher. Now when you pluck a guitar string there are many “standing waves” of different frequencies that together make the sound. There are several nodes, locations where the waves cross zero. You can think of the most prominent wave as the one that has a wavelength along the whole length of the string being played. This wave has nodes only on the ends of the string. The next wave has nodes on the end, but also a node in the middle (the 12th fret on an open string), and you can think of it as being half as long. When you lightly touch the 12th fret, you force the string to be still at that location, canceling out some waves. The waves at remain are the ones that have a node there. As you play harmonics lower down the fretboard, you are removing the larger waves and are left with smaller and smaller ones, so you hear higher pitches. This is also why harmonics can only be played at certain locations, dividing the string into halves at the 12th fret, thirds at the 7th and other frets, fourths at the 5th and other frets, etc.
With a regular note (assuming your playing right-handed), only the part of the string on the right side of your fretting finger vibrates. When you play a harmonic, both sides vibrate, essentially playing 2 notes simultaneously.
When you move your fretting hand up the fretboard, in a regular note, the vibrating length is shorter (shorter length means a higher note).
With a harmonic, moving up the fretboard lengthens the length of the vibration on the left of your fretting finger, making it deeper. BUT, the length of string on the right becomes shorter at the same time, so the harmonic goes both higher and lower simultaneously.
This is why a harmonic on fret 24 sounds about the same as a harmonic on fret 5. The 2 lengths are equal (in reversed order).
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