Sunday, May 29, 2011

Using String Muting on Guitar To Further Enhance Your Professional Sound

By Zach Nichols


String muting is an additional technique that will help you define your own individual style. Muting will also enable you to create cleaner, more professional sounding guitar chords and also solos be removing undesirable sounds from your guitar.

You'll find two kinds of string muting, the palm mute with your picking hand and the string mute with your fret hand. They serve very different purposes, but both are crucial to good guitar playing.

Fret-hand muting is especially important when playing chords and power chords. The purpose is to use a section of you finger tips and fingers to mute the strings you don't wish to include in the chord being played. As an example the C major chord is played from the 5th string to the first, but you are not supposed to hit the 6th string. I use the tip of my third finger that is holding down the fifth string 3rd fret to rub up against the 6th string thereby muting the string. I use this very same method as well with power chords, but in addition I use the fat part of my index finger to lightly place on strings 1,2,three. With just enough pressure to mute the strings. The beauty is in the event you get a little wild with your pick it still sounds acceptable. Fret-hand muting is utilized extensively.

Palm muting is more generally employed in distorted rock songs. The technique requires sitting the heel of your pick-hand palm over the strings as you pick. Many people rest it directly over the bridge, but you'll be able to experiment with distinct positions for different sounds. Also try distinct levels of pressure to manage the level of muting. This method creates a percussive, muffled or chunky sound. Combine fast down strokes with palm muting in numerous patterns with moderate distortion for sounds similar to Metallica or other metal bands.

With lead guitar playing at times it may be neccesary to further mute the fretboard. A simpleway to achieve this is to simply add a hairband around the neck of the guitar close to the nut. Be certain to have the hairband snug enough to muffle the open strings, yet not too tight as to push the strings down onto the 1st fret. This simple tip will help "shred" style lead guitar players clean up their sound by muffling unwanted open strings.

Together fret hand muting and palm muting are very individual and stylistic techniques. Integrate practicing this technique every single time you pick up your guitar and before long you'll grasp this essential skill.




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