- Light touch of either a fretting or strumming hand
- Vibration and sustain reduced
- Volume decreased
- Stops unwanted notes ringing out
- Individual strings or whole chord muted
- Often marked with an X in TAB
- Avoid accidental muting
- Mute the whole guitar
Muting With The Fretting Hand
To mute an open string with your fretting hand, press slightly on it with a spare fretting finger.
To mute a fretted string with your fretting finger, lift your fretting finger off the string slightly.
Usually when we fret we try to use the finger tip. However to mute, it can help to hold the finger slightly flatter than usual. Instead of holding the finger tips on the strings, use the pads of your fingers nearer to your finger joint.
Sometimes this is easier to do with with a finger that is already fretting an adjacent string ” leaning over” the string you want to mute.
If you are learning to mute a whole chord with your fretting hand, first make the chord shape. Then release the pressure slightly and lean your hand over so that the pads of your fingers are touching the strings rather than your finger tips. You can mute completely so you can’t hear any notes or you can mute slightly so that you can still hear the dampened chord.
Using The Strumming Hand To Mute
Muting With The Base Of The Hand
Use the fleshy base of the hand to rest lightly on the strings you don’t want to ring out. This will dampen the sound. You will need to press a little harder if you find that the strings are buzzing.
You don’t necessarily need to press with the same pressure on each string. Try slightly lifting the hand off either the bass string or the top string to get different effects.
Using Individual Strumming Fingers And Thumb To Mute
Individual fingers can mute strings by lightly resting on the note you play before moving on to the next note. It’s easier to mute a bass string by lightly resting your thumb on it. Try muting the top string with your little finger.
Chuck Muting Using The Side Of The Hand
We can chop or chuck the strings, silencing them abruptly after playing them. Quite an abrupt movement is required where the strings are quickly muted and then the muting hand moves away. Use the side of the hand nearest the little finger. This can even end up sounding like a side drum when you get good at this technique.
If you are using chuck muting to get a good rhythm, concentrate on which beats you are chucking. Try thinking of the chucked beats as drum beats that add rhythmic interest.
Try doing a muted chop on the down strum followed by an up strum with the notes ringing out.
Palm Muting
It’s surprising the difference in sound you can get just by altering the position of your resting hand.
We can use the side of the hand applied with a lighter touch near the bridge whilst we strum with that hand. This gives us a palm mute in which the notes are deadened slightly but not completely silenced.
Experiment with different resting positions for the side of your hand:
- Nearer the bridge the notes ring out a bit more, whereas the notes are dampened more nearer the neck.
- Try resting your hand on the saddle.
- Alternatively, resting your little finger on the guitar body as you finger pick helps to keep your picking hand in a good position to mute if required.
For palm muting you need your hand to be close to the strings as you play. You may need to use your wrist a bit more than you are used to. Try to keep your elbow still and really use your wrist to strum.
In some styles of music, particularly rock and metal, we can use a different approach. Instead of concentrating on which parts to palm mute, try palm muting everything slightly to deaden the sound. Then release that palm mute to emphasize the notes that are allowed to ring out.
Choosing Picks And Strings For Palm Muting
If you plan on doing a lot of palm muting, you need to consider which pick to use. For beginner players I usually recommend a flexible pick for strumming but there is a problem if you intend to do a lot of muting with a soft pick.
Whereas a nice flexible pick makes strumming easier, it might not give enough volume for muting techniques. If you are struggling, try using a slightly heavier, less flexible pick. This will make it easier to play a bit more loudly overall so that muting doesn’t deaden the sound completely.
I’ve written a guide about choosing picks here
Another consideration is the gauge of the strings. If your guitar is strung with very light strings, muting will not necessarily give a great sound as it will be too quiet.
Just as playing slide guitar is better on slightly heavier strings that have a bit of resistance, you may want to try using slightly heavier strings for lots of muting techniques.
I’ve more information on changing strings here
How To Avoid Accidentally Muting Strings On Your Cigar Box Guitar
Whilst muting deliberately is a useful technique, as a beginner you might find that you are muting strings accidentally, causing chords to sound muffled and muddy. To avoid this:
- Make sure that your fretting finger is just behind the fret wire
- Ensure that you are pressing evenly across all the strings when barring with your first finger
- Check that the joints of your barring hand are not lying directly over the strings so that your finger is actually lifting off the strings at those points.
- Individual fingers that are fretting need to be held fairly upright so that the fingertips are pressing against the string and that the rest of the finger is not accidently pressing against the next string.
Can I Mute The Whole Guitar To Practice Quietly?
Sometimes you might want to play your guitar but the people around you don’t want to hear your practicing 🙂 Here are a few tips:
- Buy a guitar mute that wraps around the open strings to deaden the sound.
- Use an elastic hair band placed very near to the nut.
- Place something absorbent such as a folded up tissue or fabric under the strings near the saddle.
- You can even use a clean sock to really put a sock in it!