Another question concerning the picking hand

[Nevermorian]

I am currently working on cleaning up my picking technique. I always used to mute the strings above the one I pick with the thumb of my picking hand, but I have recently researched the playing style of many guitarists (famous ones and friends) and found out that I seem to be the only one who does it. Now I wonder if there is a reason for NOT doing it? Does it bring any disadavantages I am not aware of? It works quite good for me, but maybe there are some techniques that become impossible through this?

 

[Zax666]

Versatility.

I'm using my palm to mute the strings since I need to go fast in palm-muted runs, plus I need my thumb for the artificial harmonics.

I believe that's the way most guitarists are doing it.

 

[Nevermorian]

I think you misunderstood me. I use my thumb for muting the overtones, not for "palm-muting".

 

[shredmaster]

I can`t see anything wrong with that way of picking, there may be a problem whan you are doing various techniques like sweeping and others(especially string skipping, ) with upstrokes, then your thumb may touch the other strings and make some noise .But really, that should work out too if you mute the strings with your palm. The real problem is the noise and how clear it is. I don`t think you have ANY disadvantages if it`s no noise at all, then you should just keep on rocking !

 

[Serge...]

Man, pick however you want as long as it sounds clean. If it works and you can pull off all the techniques you want with it, do it. Every guitarist has a slightly different way of doing things.