guitar muting technique

bryan_kilco

Member
Nov 22, 2007
4,618
19
38
Poconos, PA
I'm finding out that I have a bit of a problem with muting distorted notes/chords.

What's happening is .... my fretting hand will hit a chord, I'll pick it, and if I want to mute it right away, I let up slightly with my fretting hand and come down with my palm on the strings with my picking hand.

This tends to cause a bunch of noise between muted chugs. But it's how I've been doing it forever. It's definitely quite a challenge to try to change a technique you've been stuck in.

Any pointers here?
 
I never take off my fretting hand, unless for some occasions. I have developed something like rooting my picking hand on guitar with pinky touching guitar's body. And if I need to mute, my palm is right there to do it.
 
Be very light with your muting hand, it just takes awareness of the problem and then not much practice to fix it.
 
This tends to cause a bunch of noise between muted chugs.

If you're chugging on muted strings, why not keep your picking hand palm on the strings, muting them, throughout the riff? Just lift your fretting hand fingers from the notes when you want silence in the riff. Also, experiment with where on the strings you mute with your picking hand. Moving the mute point a bit farther from the bridge produces a better (quicker) muting effect, but it changes the tone (think djent rather than chug).

Anyway, experiment a bit and you'll get it down pretty quickly.
 
I guess it's just something I have to work on. I really don't notice it with a live amp at practice, but with amp sims it really sticks out.

Plays guitar for over 15 years.......still finding stupid little issues..... gah!
 
Plays guitar for over 15 years.......still finding stupid little issues..... gah!

Honestly man you should be proud. Nitpicking just shows your dedication to your craft.

When I mute between chuggier stuff I rest all my left hand fingers over the fretboard around the 2nd-3rd fret as well as mute with my right hand palm.
 
Muting can be tough. 19 years and I still struggle with it. I play more bedroom than rehearsal these days and that makes it worse. In rehearsal things are loud and you learn to mute accurately because if you don't then it fucks everything up. Bedroom makes you sloppy on that aspect.
 
I use a rolling technique with my wrist, the meat of my palm is ALWAYS on the bridge just far enough back to NOT must anything, when i need to must i pull my fingers in and roll my palm toward the strings, boom everything muted.