String muting, with your right or your left hand, can be a very powerful tool which opens up a lot of new sounds. It is a vital part of every experienced guitarists’ repertoire. This article will walk you through the three basic kinds of string muting.
Right-Hand (Palm) Muting
This is one of the most common kinds of string muting. All you need to do is rest the heel of your right (strumming) hand against the strings, just next to the bridge. (This article is going to assume you’re a right-handed guitarist. If not, you’ll just have to flip the directions around in your head. Sorry about that.) This stops the strings from ringing out as you strum.
When you first try this, it’ll sound clunky and not very musical, but like everything else, with practice it gets much easier. Try it on an electric with the gain cranked up for some really interesting sounds. By minutely adjusting the amount of pressure you apply with your right hand, you’ll find that you can precisely adjust how long the chord rings out for, and how it sounds.
Left-Hand Muting
This type of muting is even easier, and, in fact, you probably do it inadvertently all the time. When you’re playing a chord or a note, all you have to do is relax your left hand. Hold the chord, strum … relax. Don’t pull your fingers all the way off the strings or you’ll cause new notes to ring out.
You’ll notice quickly that this works better with barre chords, as relaxing your hand doesn’t silence any open strings. When playing chords with open strings, you need to do a bit more: relax your hand and flatten it lightly against the strings. This is still pretty simple. For example, when I’m playing a G-chord, (320033, low to high) and my middle-finger is on the low G string, I’ll relax my hand and just lightly press my middle finger against the E, A, D, and G strings. My ring finger, which is on the third fret of the B-string, will relax and flatten lightly against the high B and E strings. Practice it a few times and you’ll see how it works.
Single-String Muting
This comes up all the time, and adds an important level of precision to your play. Often you’re playing a chord but don’t want certain strings to ring. You can try to play around them, or you can mute them. A simple example would be the low E string on a C-major chord (x32010). If you’re playing carefully, it’s not to hard to simply not hit that E-string when strumming. But what about when you’re really rocking out? You’re going to hit that e-string.
This isn’t the end of the world, since the note E is part of a C-major chord. But if you don’t want it? Just slide your thumb around the back of the neck so that it lightly rests on the e-string. Don’t press down. Now jam away with your right hand … and the low E string will remain silent.
You can do this with other strings, as well. For example, one way to play a Bm7 chord is simply 7×7777. You can either barre the bottom four strings with your middle finger and wrap your thumb around to play the low E-string, or use your index and middle fingers, but in either case you just let the fingers lightly touch the A string, keeping it silent. (That chord shape, by the way, is a really versatile one to keep in mind, particularly when playing funk or blues).
Now you know the basics of muting. It’ll take a little practice to get the hang of it, but stick with it and you’ll have it down before you know it!
