Muting techniques...

[daveinspain]

I need a little help with my technique.... I'm getting all kinds of unwanted harmonics, drones, rumbles and general sloppiness ringing out from my chords. Can someone please talk a little bit about string muting... I'm getting better at muting unwanted strings from sounding with my left (neck) hand but I'm sure I'm not doing something correctly with my strumming hand. Should I be resting the palm of my hand on the bridge? Any tips on how to clean up my rhythms would be appreciated.

 

Thanks, Dave

[NeoConMan]

With aggressive strumming, I mute everything slightly with my palm.

A string lightly brushed on accident won't ring.

 

If my left hand stays in one place, I'll use my fingers where possible.

 

Of course, I'm far from a pro at this.

My one claim to fame is pretty much what you describe;

All the unwanted harmonics, drones, rumbles and general sloppiness ringing out from my chords.

[daveinspain]

Dave are you wanting to do palm mutes or just prevent certain strings from making noises?

 

Probably a little of both... example: I'm playing a pretty ballad and have a real sweet clean tone with a chorus to round out the sound. As I'm doing the chord progression I'm getting lots of crap floating around....

[AXE®]

Rest your palm gently on the bridge and roll it slightly for mild muting or dampening. Find your spot.

 

Strum with the wrist not the elbow.

[RichCI]

I'm a muting freak but I don't know if I can describe all the nuances that go into it as it depends on what you're going for tone-wise. Mute closer to the bridge and the mute is looser, further away and it's tighter. I also mute and unmute a LOT; I also do what I call a "bouncing mute" where I'm muting the initial attack from the pick but releasing quickly that gives it an effect sort of like delaying the note/chords just a hair but with a swell to it.

 

I sort of picked up on muting by playing lots of heavy metal in the 80's - ya can't play high gain, high volume electric guitar without muting and being quick with the volume knob. Other good genres of music that makes great use of muting are ska and reggae; the tones are clean and there's a nice, syncopated swing to both.

[AXE®]

Example.

 

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[zigzag]

Essentially, I do most of my muting with my fretting hand, and in my technique, I mute with my index finger of my fretting hand from the bottom (1st) string to the top, and with the palm of my right hand, from the top string down. Occasionally, I mute with the thumb holding the pick. It is a technique I am still perfecting, along with my vibrato.

[Thundergod]

Don't know if this makes any sense to you guys but I mute with both my hands... I learned that when playing bass.

[daveinspain]

Rest your palm gently on the bridge and roll it slightly for mild muting or dampening. Find your spot.

 

Strum with the wrist not the elbow.

 

 

 

OK thanks AXE... I gotta start using more wrist and less elbow. Thanks for posting the video too....

 

Thanks for the tips guys, I'm on it!

[deepblue]

Practice on a floating Floyd Rose. I find that because of the float you have to be very gentle, so you become

pretty good at side hand and lower palm muting of the strings.

[milod]

Yeah, lots of ways...

 

My old Gretsch had a mute built in down by the bridge as I recall; and didn't the Fender Jag also?

 

That and hand muting was used a lot in the "olden days" both with right and left hand techniques, especially with "barre" chords in rhythm playing. I noticed a lot of it in Western Swing styles of that latter more than a right hand muting. For example, too, imagine playing a C7 up the neck so it's really an "F" but then un-play the "7" and bend the middle finger enough to mute the G string as though you're doing a sloppy C6 shape of a chord. Regardless, a lot of that was designed to get a "Boom-shuck" sorta rhythm going.

 

I think the built-in guitar mute was "out" as soon as it was "in."

 

I mostly do it somewhat along those lines or with a bit of palm action while fingerpickin - another bit that dates back to Merle Travis if not before. Really heavy palm muting for me, anyway, on stuff like "nine pound hammer" so it's almost a Johnny Cash sort of beat.

 

m

[myspace.com/jessenoah]

I mute a couple of ways, you can use the part of your hand where it attches to your wrist (the butt of your hand?)

 

 

but I have gotten pretty good @ muting open chords but laying out my pinky right over the bridge, and it mutes the string ever so slightly, it sounds very good for ballads and soft stuff

[Dom_JEM]

The master of palm muting

 

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Tom Scholz is a GOD