(Un)usual Guitar Techniques #10: String Muting

As I mentioned in previous parts of this guitar techniques series, the electric guitar is extremely sensitive. And I don't mean that it can't withstand rough handling or vigorous playing. If you play a music genre where your goal is to produce the proverbial "guitar wall sound" (a thick, distorted sound that fills pretty much the entire space of a mix or club), then you might think that you don't need to mute the strings at all. But even massive guitar riffs sound much better if you only play the notes that belong there. Otherwise, the sharp chords easily turn into a messy sound.

Where to mute the strings?

The first simple answer is: everywhere. Or rather, wherever you can and wherever your hands can reach. If you've ever handled an electric guitar with even a slightly distorted sound, you'll agree with me that often all it takes is an accidental touch, a stumble on a string, or too vigorous a pick movement to make the guitar sound different than you intended. It doesn't really matter if you're playing hard or rather soft. Any unwanted sounds will stand out more in soft playing. And in loud and distorted playing, any unwanted overtones are unsurprisingly very loud, too.

So what to do when our both hands are busy – the left on the fretboard and the right plucking the strings? We use all the available free "parts" in our hands, which – if cooperate – ensure that no empty string sounds accidentally. This is especially true of the strings closest to the one we are playing, which is of course where the greatest danger lies. Different guitarists use different combinations of techniques, but you'll find the essentials in the following video.

While the left index finger mutes all the strings higher than the one you're playing (similar to holding a barre chord) and the finger pad also mutes the nearest deeper string, the right hand takes care of the others. The edge of the right hand mutes mainly the bass strings, but sometimes it may be more practical to use the thumb side. In any case, the ideal situation is one in which at every moment of your solo you mute all the other strings except the one you are currently playing.

Palm muting 

In the first chapter, we discussed how to mute strings that aren't currently played. Quite often, however, we want to mute the strings we're playing. The sound of slightly muted strings is much sharper, more punchy and rhythmic. Many iconic rock or metal songs could not do without the sharp and choppy riffs played on muted strings. Typically, you might think of the beginning of Foo Fighters' "All My Life", where the strings are almost completely muted.

This technique is called palm muting, in tablature, you can find it abbreviated as PM. Its principle is that you gently place the edge of your right hand on the strings just in front of the bridge. The distance from the bridge and how much you press the edge of your hand against the strings determine the quality of the resulting sound. Similar to working with the volume knob, you are looking for the "sweet spot" between a completely muted, sort of deaf tone, and the normal unmuted sound of the string.

Palm muting is, of course, of great use in rhythm playing, and not just on electric guitar. You can also mute the strings of an acoustic guitar in the same way, resulting in a very percussive punchy sound. Whenever you want to play something harder, emphasize the rhythm of a song (for example, when you're playing alone without a drummer) or just add to the dynamics of a song, this technique will serve you well.

Strum the strings hard

Muting with the edge of the hand is also great for soloing, and after string harmonic tones and squealies muted notes are another important means of expression for your solos. They add the necessary dynamics and gradation. Especially if you are playing a long solo, it will be very helpful to include a passage or lick played on muted strings. In fact, the change from the normal tone is quite significant, and it will, figuratively speaking, wake the listeners up. Muted tones are suitable for energetic passages, especially on the bass strings. They create a beautiful contrast to long notes played by string bending in higher pitches, for example.

David Gilmour, for example, works very well with this contrast, his solos are often a combination of long arching melodies and the sharp "bark" of a squealing or muted guitar, which wakes us up at an unexpected moment. In many solos, Gilmour also uses the percussive sound of completely muted strings, when there are no more notes but only rather scratchy sounds created by running a pick over the heavily muted strings.

This technique is called raking, but as you can see from the following video, it has nothing to do with raking leaves. These percussive sounds are well suited to blues or jazz but are also used in rock solos. They are a kind of off-tones, which even in tablature are indicated only by a cross on the string.

You can't tell them apart, but it's still not completely irrelevant where you play them on the fretboard, because they retain a kind of echo of the original tone. Raking is often used when you want to accentuate a note in a solo, typically the final bent note of a phrase. It's one of the many subtle "spices" that can make for colourful and interesting solos.

String muting, palm muting and string harmonics from the previous part of the series all fall into the area of tone control, which is an ongoing challenge for many of us. In fact, picking out a tone or melody is only the beginning. Giving each note exactly the expression you want and playing it clean and confidently is a much more difficult task. Let's keep up playing next year!