Hello again, folks.
I apologize for the delay in material - I had to adjust to life as a full time graduate student as the semester just started a couple weeks ago. As some of you are aware, I also offer private instruction in person as well as via Skype or its facsimiles and this venture has been keeping me busy as well.
On that note, one thing I've spent a lot of time with all of my students recently is muting. Muting is a very fundamental aspect of playing an electric guitar. The more gain you dial in to your amp, the more you will need good muting technique.
Important Note: As I continue in my explanations, please note that when describing notes above and below the one you are playing, I am refering to “above the string" and "below the string" in the sense of the ceiling and the floor.
Muting with your picking hand:
Your right hand is capable of muting all the strings at once by resting the side of your hand flat on all of the strings. For further clarification, by "the side of your hand," I mean the part you would hit the brick with if you were so inclined to karate chop a brick in half. Weird example, I know, but what if we only want to mute some of the strings while we play on others?
The side of your picking hand's thumb is an excellent surface to mute with. Whereas a softer surface wouldn't stop the sound completely or without significant pressure, the side of your thumb is a hard ridge formed by the bone in your thumb. It is relatively easy to use this part of your thumb to mute the strings above the one you are picking. This will only be possible if you are gripping the pick correctly.
To grip the pick correctly, hold your hand out in front of you and point straight ahead with your index finger. Now, curl your index finger so that it points at the floor, but do so by bending the second and third joint of your finger and not by bending the first joint that connects your finger to the rest of your hand. Next, use your other hand to put your index finger on the outer side of your index finger so that the pick points in the same direction as your fingertip and a little bit of the pick goes past your fingertip (1-2mm?). Finally, use your picking hand's thumb to clamp the pick to the side of your index finger. This is the correct way to hold the pick and you will notice it is much easier to mute with your thumb now.
Important Note: you will not be able to employ this technique while strumming, only when picking notes.
Okay, so far you already know that your right hand is used to mute the strings above the one you are picking. We can also use it to mute the strings below the one you are picking by using our right hand’s middle and ring fingers that have been floating around, doing nothing. This is particularly easy to apply to single string lines.
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
e|-----------------------------------------------------
B|--12p0-0-10p0-0-8p0-0-6p0-0-10p0-0-8p0-0-6p0-0-5p0-0-
G|-----------------------------------------------------
D|-----------------------------------------------------
A|-----------------------------------------------------
E|-----------------------------------------------------
Above is a Ritchie Blackmore-esque open string pull-off line on a single string in sixteenth note triplets. When I pull-off the notes on the B string, it’s going to be easy for my finger to accidentally hit the high E string since that’s the direction I pull-off, especially since this is kind of a fast lick.
So, how do I fix this? Aside from muting with my fretting hand, I can also let the middle finger of my right hand gently rest on top of the high E string while playing this. Very simple to apply in this example, gets dicey when you are changing strings frequently which is why I will typically only use this extra layer of muting for legato playing or single string lines like the one above.
Muting with your fretting hand:
You can also use your fretting hand to mute every note at once by lightly resting your fingers over the strings so they cannot vibrate. Picking muted strings like this in combination with a wah wah pedal is a popular effect used by many, for instance Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine uses this idea during "Killing in the Name Of", during that build-up. You know which one I'm talking about.
Again, we may not want to mute all the strings at once. There are certain cases though, where we may want to mute all of the strings below the one we are playing...
1 + 2 +
e|---------------------------
B|---------------------------
G|--4h5h7p5p4---4h5h7p5p4----
D|-----------h7----------h7--
A|---------------------------
E|---------------------------
Another fast sixteenth note sextuplet lick, this one borrowed straight from Eddie Van Halen's very famous "Eruption". Upon attempting this, you may notice that when you pull-off those notes on the G string, you accidentally flick the B string by accident and cause it to ring out. This can be avoided if you leave your index finger fretting the fourth fret of the G string, but allow the bottom of your index finger to gently touch and mute the B and high E strings. It is in this manner that your fretting hand can be used to fret the strings below the one you are playing.
You aren't limited to your index finger, either - sometimes you may end up using your middle or ring finger to mute in this manner too.
Generally speaking, whichever finger is fretting closer to the nut (that's the thing that lines up your strings near your tuning pegs) is going to be able to mute the strings below the one you are playing on without accidentally muting notes you want to play.
Now, that covers the majority of muting with your fretting hand. We now know that the bottom of your index finger can mute the strings below the one we are playing. You can also use your index finger to mute a string above the one you are fretting.
Important Note: This is handy when you are strumming chords and cannot use your right hand to mute the strings above the one you are playing.
B5
e|-----
B|-----
G|--4--
D|--4--
A|--2--
E|-----
A simple B power chord. Logically, we’d use our index finger to fret the note on the A string 2nd fret. If we want to strum this, we will have to mute that low E string or make sure we don’t hit it by mistake. An easy way to mute that low E string is to just “overfret” that note on the A string — that is to say, let your index finger hang a little bit past the A string so that the very tip of your index finger now touches the low E string and mutes it. This is a practical application of muting strings above the one you are playing with your left hand. However, this won’t always work...
A5
e|-----
B|-----
G|--2--
D|--2--
A|--0--
E|-----
What’s the difference, you ask? In this example, I would use my index finger to barre the two adjacent notes on the G and D string. I will not be able to mute the low E string in the manner described above because if I do, I will also accidentally mute the A string!
In this particular example, we wouldn’t really need to mute the E string because the note I’ve highlighted in blue is also an E — therefore we know the pitch “E” is already included in this chord so it would be OK if we added another E, even in a lower octave (i.e. Letting the low E string ring while strumming)
Now, if this were a case where we didn’t want that low E string to ring, we wouldn’t be able to mute it with our left hand’s index finger and so the only other practical way to mute that low E would be to wrap your thumb around the neck and use it to mute the low E. I am not a huge advocate of this technique as I believe that placing the thumb on the back of the neck is a good habit to develop due to the greater mobility and reach this hand position provides. I will talk more about hand positions and changing positions in the next article.
In the meantime, I would encourage you all to go plug in your guitar, turn the gain up a bit and start trying to employ some of these muting techniques to clean up your repertoire. In general, I would recommend practicing with both clean and distorted guitar tones as they can help you identify different weak points in your playing. For muting technique, you want to make sure you have some gain on there because it will emphasize any sloppy or accidental notes and make it easier for you to practice your muting.
As a parting note, it is very useful to record yourself playing at times because you can then listen back and concentrate on listening for any mistakes you might have made. Until next time folks.
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