3.6 Pluck Behind Nut

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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.

How to Pluck Behind the
Nut

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:

Locking Nut

This effect works especially well with a pitch shifter and distortion. Try the following method if you have a pitch shifter (good 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.

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