IN THE WOODSHED
String muting comes in many forms, says Charlie Griffiths, and this month we will explore all manner of percussive pleasures.
Charlie Griffiths continues to help you hone your general guitar skills. This month: muted and non-muted double-stops and riffs.
String muting is a very powerful and useful technique, which you can either use to deaden the sound of a note you are fretting, or you can use it to create completely percussive sounds. This is a fantastically effective way of infusing dynamics and rhythmic interest into your playing. We can split muting technique into two areas: picking-hand muting, and fretting-hand muting.
The usual approach to picking hand muting is ‘palm muting’. To do this gently, rest the side of your palm on the strings near the bridge. This type of muting is a huge part of the metal guitarist’s arsenal. Players like James Hetfield of Metallica and Anthrax’s Scott Ian popularised this technique in the 80s and gave rise to the entire thrash and metal genre as we know it today. Get aquainted with this technique with Example 1. This is a simple powerchord-based rhythm that uses both consecutive downstrokes and alternating muted and un-muted chords. Although the two sounds are very different, the required hand movement is very slight. You only need to lift your hand away from the strings by around 5mm; just enough to let the strings breathe and vibrate freely.
Fretting-hand muting means relaxing the fingers so that they are touching the strings, but not pressing them down into the frets. Funk and funk rock players such as Nile Rodgers, John Frusciante and Nuno Bettencourt use this technique extensively to add syncopation to chord-based rhythms. Example 2 shows this technique in action with an E5 powerchord-based riff. When switching between the chord shape and the muted sound, aim to keep your fretting hand in as similar a position as possible; this will make the transition seamless.
Example 3 focuses on this same technique in a more funky setting. This riff still uses the fretting hand to mute the strings, but this time with both double-stops and single notes. This technique makes the playing of syncopated 16th-note accents much more consistent as you are able to keep your strumming hand moving continuously while accenting the notes with your fretting hand.
The fourth and final example combines both palm muting and fretting-hand muting in a larger two-bar riff to help you integrate all the techniques into your playing. Approach it slowly at first in order to make sure all of the notes are clear and in time and the subtle muting movements are clean and efficient. Then, as always, have a go at playing along to the backing track we’ve provided. NEXT MONTH Charlie looks at applying vibrato to one, two and three-fret bends
YOU CAN USE MUTING TO DEADEN THE SOUND OF A NOTE YOU ARE PLAYING, OR TO CREATE COMPLETELY PERCUSSIVE SOUNDS