CYCLE OF VIDEO LESSONS: COMMON MISTAKE WHEN PLAYING THE ELECTRIC GUITAR. VIDEO LESSON: "How to mute the strings without changing the attack with a pick"

The first video in the series is dedicated to common misconceptions, problems and mistakes that many guitarists have. The question arises, who measured the prevalence of all these problems, errors and misconceptions? The answer is that I measured this degree. Spending fifty or sixty hours of classes a week (directly with students), willy-nilly you notice that a certain number of mistakes are repeated by many people. It is clear that we are all different, and an individual approach should work, no one argues with this. But there are mistakes that are repeated with enviable regularity.

Is it necessary to reduce the attack with a pick in order to get a clean sound production?

I started keeping a list and have been keeping it for over a year now. It has already included dozens of errors. I am sure that many guitarists who have questions about playing the electric guitar, after watching this cycle, will recognize themselves in many videos, will be able to fix problems,.

So, let's discuss the first problem within our cycle. It's about the groundless infringement of impulsivity right hand in the context of pure sound production. To make it clear, I will immediately give an example. Take Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train riff. What is the average student doing here? He plays and hears "dirt". It's completely normal that he hears her. Here, with the naked ear, you can hear that the underlying strings ring like bells and spoil the entire guitar part. Naturally, this does not suit a person, and he tries to take measures to eliminate the deficiency. Which is a completely normal situation. But what action is this person trying to take?

The fact is that many here mistakenly blame the right hand for this “dirt” and try to localize the attack to such an extent that they are guaranteed not to catch extra strings, that is, they reduce the amplitude of the pick, trying to aim clearly at the right string. Reduce the speed of movement of the mediator, which negatively affects impulsivity. But this does not affect the frequency in a positive way.

I now hit, in my opinion, there is nowhere to be exact. That is, I am guaranteed not to pick up any extra strings, but the ringing still goes on. The point here is this. Claims should be made not to the right hand, but to the left hand, which should stop all this "garbage". AT this case"garbage" we call the sound of the underlying strings. This "garbage" should be stopped with the first finger. This is discussed in detail in the video tutorial. But in this case, on specific example here the fault is exclusively with the first finger, which in the anti-example was torn off the fretboard and did not touch the strings. And they, accordingly, rang.

Conclusion

What is the moral of this fable? Restricting impulsiveness will only lead to an even "bader" sound, so to speak. "Dirt" will remain, and the sound will be "cotton". That is, you need to play impulsively and cleanly at the same time. Naturally, the attack must be accurate, but at the same time, biting, fast. The entire mass of the forearm and the mass of the hand must be involved. And the first finger, in turn, must take over the duties of muting all the underlying strings. Then the sound will be clear.

In general, if you hear "dirt" in your sound production, do not rush to blame it on your right hand. As practice shows, the left hand is often to blame. And even if the right one is also to blame, then this is not a reason to reduce impulsivity. Look at things like the edge position of your right hand to see if it mutes all those strings or not. Turn to the left hand and see if it performs the function of silencing

Mute strings is one of the most important techniques for playing the guitar. If you want to achieve a clear sound, get rid of unnecessary interference and noise that arise when extracting sounds, then you need to learn how to properly muffle the strings.

Tab designation

On the tablature, jamming with the palm of your hand is indicated by “R. M. ”or“ PM ”, dotted or dashed line - the duration of the jamming. If the heights of muted notes can be distinguished, the fret numbers are written, otherwise the “X” symbol is put. If this symbol stands, but there is no sign of muting with the palm of your hand, then you need to mute this string with your hand clamping the frets. For jamming extraneous sounds On an electric guitar, we recommend using a volume knob or pedal. In large pauses of more than 8-10 seconds, this method will help to avoid extraneous noise.

Mute guitar strings with the right hand

Palm muting is a technique for muting strings while playing with the edge of the palm of your right hand, which allows you to reduce the amount of extraneous noise in the parts you play. This technique is also used in small pauses to avoid feedback. Palm muting is used on both classical and electric guitars. This technique is very commonly used by guitarists in any genre that uses an overdrive effect on the electric guitar.

Muting the strings on an electric guitar allows you to reproduce a warm, dull timbre, similar to the sound of a double bass.

When playing high notes of passages, you can reliably muffle the strings by placing thumb or palm edge. When changing the position of the left hand, the strings must be muted completely with the right hand at the bridge. To do this, lean the edge of your palm against the strings with palm mute, covering a large area. Move your fingers at the same time and try not to touch the strings with the fingers of your left hand when changing positions.

How to mute the strings with your palm

First of all, palm pressure is applied. The stronger it is, the stronger the muting, the -effect, percussion appears, the notes are less recognizable. With light pressure at the time of touch, a slight damping is created.

The most common method of muting the strings with an edge at the bridge. The farther the hand is from the bridge, the harder the mute. However, this method of playing the guitar also has disadvantages:

• It is necessary to make extra movements to mute the strings, which is an obstacle for some techniques;
• The guitarist's hands often sweat during playing, as a result of which sweat accelerates the corrosion of the metal bridge;
• Also, pressure on the bridge can sometimes affect the tuning of the guitar.

Mute the strings with the left hand

Muting the strings with the left hand seems rather difficult at first. You can try this technique on an E5 chord: hold the fifth and fourth strings on the second fret index finger. Since we do not need to barre, we only pinch the strings with the first phalanx of the finger, the other fingers are in contact with the strings and muffle the unused strings.

dumping

A guitarist must be able not only to muffle the strings correctly, but also to control the duration of the notes. This muffling technique is called "dumping" (from the English damp - muffling), denoted by "D". This technique is very important when playing, because the fingers of the left hand do not control the duration of the notes. Dumping is also needed when the next note needs to be played in a different position, which requires moving the slide. If you met the sign "D", then the sounded string should be muffled.

Power chords with string muting

(power chords) - chords consisting of the root and fifth tones of the same scale. For example, a power chord A is written as A5, and C as C5, and so on. Power chords are played on an electric guitar overdriven.

Since there are strings that should not sound, it is necessary to apply the muting technique. For example, on the tablature of the A5 chord above, the first, second and sixth strings should not sound. Also during a simple fight, the technique of muting the strings is used. First, the fingers clenched into a fist straighten and extract the chord, and then the palm muffles its sound.

String muting exercise

We offer you a series of exercises to develop the palm muting technique. Do them slowly, pay attention to the placement of your hands, because muting the strings on the guitar is one of the most important foundations of guitar playing.

Exercise 1. Play a downstroke.

Exercise 2. Play with a variable stroke.

Exercise 3. The first two notes are a downstroke, the third one is an upstroke.

Exercise 4. The main thing here is the correct playing technique.

Exercise 5

Exercise 6

Exercise 7

Exercise 8. Try to arrange the strokes yourself.

Exercise 9. Play all notes with a downstroke.

Greetings, dear guitarist, most likely, if you are interested in today's topic, namely, the question of how to properly mute the strings on an electric guitar or a regular guitar, - acoustic guitar, then most likely you are a beginner guitarist. This topic is very popular among beginner guitarists, because muting gives the sound of chords and songs brighter shades, adds variety to them.

What is silencing? Muting is a special technique of playing the guitar that imitates percussion instruments. With the help of muting, the guitarist, as a rule, creates a rhythmic pattern of a guitar composition by hitting the strings or the body of the guitar.

Of course, it is quite difficult to describe the process of jamming in the text, but I will still try to cope with this task. Also, below in the text you can find a video lesson on this topic, perhaps you will better perceive the information from the video.

Also, muting is very often used by guitarists performing “heavy” music.. Almost all known guitar riffs performed using muting. So, if you are going to play heavy guitar riffs on your electric guitar, then the information from today's lesson is a must-read.

Technique

First, let's clench the fist of the right hand (the hand that performs the mute) so, so that it is ideally suited to perform a muting:

• Bend your fingers (all but the thumb) so that the pads of the third phalanx of the fingers are firmly pressed against the pads of the first phalanx. At the same time, we do not bend the joints located at the base of the fingers, they remain straight;
• We bend the thumb in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe second phalanx and press it tightly against the inside of the palm;
• As a result, you should get a kind of “half-fist”, it is with it that you will perform the jamming technique.

So, the right hand is ready for silencing, now let's go directly to its execution, this is done as follows:

• We pass with our “half-fist” along the strings from top to bottom, muffling the strings. Try to mute while playing any chords, this will allow you to understand the whole performance technique, so to speak, in action.

If it is difficult for you to understand the above textual description of the implementation of this technique, then below you can watch a video tutorial, after reading which, I am sure, the questions that have arisen will disappear by themselves.

Exercises

In order to learn how to do jamming with high quality and correctly, I recommend that you, regularly, do the following exercise:

• Take any chord on the guitar (whichever is more convenient for you, this does not matter when performing the exercise);
• Run your fingers down the strings twice (i.e. just play a chord twice);
• After you play a guitar chord twice, mute it;
• Repeat the above action cyclically (i.e. in a circle). Play slowly at first (until your game is smooth), then increase the pace until you can perform this exercise at maximum speed.

Video lesson

Below you can watch a video tutorial in which the author tells and shows how to properly mute. If you have any questions after reading the material above, then after watching the presented lesson, I have no doubt that they will disappear.

That's all for today, I hope you have learned how to mute well on your electric guitar or acoustic guitar. If you have any comments, thoughts or questions on the material presented, you can safely voice them in the comments to this entry (located below). I will try to answer them as quickly as possible.

Subscribe to the music community "Anatomy of Music"! Free video lessons, tutorials on music theory, improvisation and more.

If the first step of every rock and metal guitarist was to learn power chords, the second step is to learn a variety of muting techniques.

Surely you have heard a slightly muffled, muffled, but at the same time exorbitantly “heavy” guitar sound, like the song Weezer-Hash Pipe?

Of course, you have only one question: it's cool, but how?

This sound is the result of applying a technique known to rockers as "palm-muting (palm-muting)", and to everyone else more modestly - "jamming".

Most often, guitarists use mutes in parts of a song that need to sound quieter and calmer to bring out the rush of unbridled drive and power that follows.

It's worth saying that palm muting used in many musical styles, as it allows you to open up a larger range of your instrument's sound, and avoid the appearance of "dirt" at the output, so mastering this playing technique to perfection is the sacred duty of every guitarist.

"Palm Muting"- this is a playing technique, the essence of which is to lightly, barely noticeable muffle the strings with the right hand, and at the same time strike the strings. This mostly makes sense when playing an electric guitar, but when playing an acoustic instrument, you will most likely discover a lot of interesting things too.

For right game palm muting the hand that holds the pick (for most of you, your right hand) should be placed on the strings next to the tailpiece (bridge). The bottom line is that slightly (!), just slightly, mute the strings, which you strike with a pick, achieving a sound when the strings are still vibrating, but the amplitude and duration of vibrations are reduced. By placing your hand further away from the bridge, you simply turn down the sound of the strings, the sound will be dry and tedious (this is not rock and roll at all), and if the hand leaves the strings at all, then you will not hear any muting.

Place your right hand on the border of the bridge and strings so that the 4th, 5th and 6th strings are slightly muted. With your left hand at this time, you can hold any chord you are interested in (we recommend using a power chord, preferably on the first frets, as shown in the picture below, in order to achieve the most "metallic" sound). After that, you can make a long-awaited strike with a plectrum on the strings to which the indicated playing technique was applied.

If you did everything right, you will hear all the notes of the chord, but their sound will be powerful and muffled, as if driven into a “pipe”. Most likely, when you try it for the first time, you will not achieve the perfect sound, but this is a matter of practice.

Of key importance are hand position (on the bridge but lightly touching the strings), pressure (don't push too hard). muffle the strings) and uniformity - applying the technique unevenly, you will definitely notice that some strings sound more sonorous and prolonged, and some do not sound at all. We will try to avoid such results.

Concentrate on getting controlled, powerful and spacious sound. An excellent illustration of the use of palm muting (where we hear it almost all the time) is the song famous group"Pantera" - Cowboys From Hell.

On a note:

All work on proper use palm muting performed with the back of the right hand. Find the most comfortable position for you (and for your sound) in which you can control the position of the hand and the pressure on the strings. In the course of practice, the hand will “remember” this position, and each time it will be easier for you, to automatism.

Practice is all it takes. Palm muting is used almost everywhere on the electric guitar, and guitarists who are not good at it are quite unpleasant to listen to.

Focus on playing power chords, but use all combinations, possibilities and tricks. Combine playing with and without muting, as well as non-standard chords, the result will pleasantly surprise you.

Turn on the overload, experiment with the gain level. A curious effect is given by the Wah-wah lotion, which changes the range of sound with each strike on the strings. Then you can use other effects that can emphasize your well-developed palm muting technique.

Be careful not to over-mute the strings so that they don't stop sounding at all.

If your guitar has a Floyd Rose bridge system, be especially careful when applying pressure to it, as you can accidentally change the height of the strings and the notes will “out of tune”.

That's all, you can enjoy the results of mastering palm muting techniques.

Not everyone knows how to mute the strings when playing the guitar. Some have heard little of it, and some jam only in one way known to them.

In general, string muting is used quite often, especially in the genres: Reggae (reggae), blues, Russian rock, and so on. This is a rather interesting technique that gives variety to the usual game by fighting or busting.

There are several basic ways to mute strings when playing the guitar. They are used all over the world, both by beginners and professionals. Now let's take a closer look at each type:

Mute with thumb. This is the easiest way to mute strings. To do this, you need to hit down with your index finger and immediately, almost instantly, make a downward movement with your thumb while pressing the strings. Try muting the strings with your thumb now. Initially, you may not succeed, but with frequent practice you will gain experience.

Mute with the palm. This is about the same, only you should move down not with your thumb, but with your palm. Sometimes you need not just a one-time muting, but a constant muting in order to betray a peculiar effect. To do this, you simply need to place the edge of your hand on the strings near the saddle.

Muting the strings with a barre chord. Perhaps this is the most difficult way to mute strings. Initially, you must learn how to play barre chords. In order to perform muting, there are several options: so to speak, “permanent” muting and “non-permanent” muting. What is the difference? A constant is when you don't hold a barre chord, but just hold it open and play it (used in the song Smells Like Teen Spirit). Not constant - when you just play with a strike and in order to drown out at the right time, just loosen the chord clamp.

All these tips you should use in practice regularly in order to gain the necessary experience and skill in playing guitar using muting.