Dimebag Darrell Style Harmonics

The late great Dimebag Darrell had many signature elements about his playing style that catapulted him to the top of the metal guitar world in the early nineties.

Probably the most notable technique in his bag of tricks was the insane harmonic screams that he could conjure out of his guitar. We had heard harmonics and dive bombs and all that before in rock and metal, but nothing like this.

In this video lesson I will demonstrate how to play Dimebag Darrell style harmonics just like the man himself did.

First off, you need a lot of gain. A strong humbucking bridge pickup and a ton of gain are essential to getting the huge harmonic screams out of your guitar like Dimebag did.

In the video lesson I demonstrate the 3 steps of achieving that kind of effect. It can be a little bit tricky at first, but once your hands get acclimated to the technique, you can then experiment with playing harmonics that are little more difficult to hit. Those more difficult harmonics can usually be found at points just before or after frets between the 1st and 3rd frets on the G string, and it will take some experimentation to find ones that you can use.

Dimebag definitely had the right kind of touch for this technique. The touch that is required is rather light and also very accurate over specific harmonic node points. However, with a little bit of practice you can make this technique almost second nature kind of like pinch harmonics are after a while of playing.

Hopefully you will have a floating trem system that is set up correctly and stays in tune well. The fact that you have to depress the bar down until the strings are pretty slack puts a huge demand on your trem system. So make sure yours is working correctly before starting to practice this technique because otherwise, you will go out of tune almost immediately.

In any case, any study of Dimebag Darrell's playing is simply an effort to demonstrate a little bit of what made this extremely passionate and dedicated metal guitarist tick. There will never be another one like him and the guitar world was dealt a HUGE blow with his untimely death. Hopefully this lesson will help keep his spirit alive in some small way for future generations of guitarists.

Carl..

[stevec]

it don't look right without a Dean ML or one of his Beautiful Washburns.

[lopata]

I haven't had all the strings for more than a week since I discovered how to squeal

[ajrosales]

I just got my mojo back and this is one trick I want to learn. Thank you for this!

[jimbatts]

Thanks! I've been doing this wrong for a while. 🤘

[LycanTroop]

First thing he does is, he depresses 😢

[EUSL]

How do you mute the upper (down strings)

[arthurfarrantbmx]

can I use a fender synchronized tremlo or do I need a Floyd rose style bridge?

[joshdraken]

I was having so much trouble before watching this video, but now I'm squeeling like Tekashi 69! Thanks, Guitar Guy! \m/

[samvallongo]

It's basically practicing very light touch with ur tip ur finger on command there's also harmonic on 9-14 frets on high e

[macanthony]

AMAZING VID! One thing though. You gotta flip the whammy bar around haha

[zacharykaufman]

Wee woo wee woo "pulls over." Dime, "ah, gotcha. Now take this shot ah whiskey."

[thatguitarguyBillyPezzack]

Not a ' Dimebag ' idea - We got that from EVH in the early 80's - watch -' live without a net' ...

[tylerthomas]

I remember watching the video isn't there a trick about going down two frets anywhere and catching another harmonic? I may be wrong

[adrianvelante]

How do you keep your guitar in tune without locking tuners when you do that???

[jacqueskisling]

Add a wah pedal it makes that harmonics pop . That's how dimebag did it

[kajirai]

Hey Carl can u teach us some guitar lesson video from the band lamb of god

[DomesticTruther]

He had the bar pointed to the back tho

[brandontay]

My whammy bar is unable to pull upwards. It can only divebomb....

[FallbackPage]

I completely broke my floyd rose guitar doing this. I am so annoyed right now

[apostle]

Jesus christ is coming repent choose him today he loves you ..