Hey there fellow guitar people, it's good to be here with you. We're
going to talk about how to play an easy muted strum for beginners and for
more experienced people who haven't mastered this technique yet. I
consider this technique an important part of playing guitar. It's
used of course to add some variety to your strumming but it also is used
for playing melody notes and bass lines. I'll show you the technique
and then I'll show you a way to help make it natural for you, then we're going
to put it into a very useful strum pattern then finally
I'll show you how to use it with melodies and bass lines.
Let's do this.
The foundation of this muted strum is using your right hand to muffle the
strings when you strum that's why sometimes it's called a palm
mute though technically speaking you're not really using your palm you're using
the side of your hand more like a karate chop or something. Now I want to start
off by distinguishing two different types of
mutes. We have the right hand mute. I often call it the
right hand mute but sometimes people call it the palm mute and then
you have a left hand mute. The right hand mute is caused by
muffling the strings by? You guessed it. Your right hand.
Now the left hand mute is caused by releasing the tension in your left hand
when you're strumming a chord. It works particularly well with bar chords
because you see you're touching every string so when you release the pressure
all the strings stop ringing but you can also use it with
open chords. You have to do something a little different like
collapse your hand sometimes to make them stop.
That said in this lesson we're going to focus on the right hand mute. And hey,
if you'd like to know more about the left hand mute and maybe even how you
can use it with the right hand mute together,
let me know in the comments. So back to the right hand technique.
You're going to karate chop the strings probably close to the bridge.
Now there's some variety here. If you move it closer this way you get a little
different sound than if you move it back. Generally speaking, I'm on this side
because I want a little bit of tone. Listen.
You hear a little bit of sound. As you move this way it gets to be more just
dead strings, right? There's room for both but we're
going to start closer to the bridge. I encourage you to experiment as you get
going. So now the basic technique. Step one, you dampen the string with
the karate chop of your hand. Pick is up. Now step two, you bring the pick down
over the strings. Right now I don't have a sound because I
didn't make a chord but I want you to focus on the right hand.
Karate chop. Pick down. Try this with me. Karate chop.
Pick down. Karate chop. Pick down. So it's good to just get the
basic motion. You probably noticed I'm not
making a lot of movement and that's actually one of the good
things about this strum. When you make big
motions like this with strumming there's a lot of distance on each side that you
have to close up really quickly and it's a waste of energy. You'll notice
really good guitar players generally stay
close to the strings when they're doing this and they use a little bit of motion
with your wrist too. This takes practice but you'll see that I could actually
strike the strings without moving my arm at all,
just with my wrist.
Okay, let's try it together now. Go ahead, karate chop the strings.
Pick up now pick down and again it's the wrist
and the thumb that's forcing the pick down. Again karate chop,
pick down, karate chop, pick down. Let's try it with a chord so we're on
the same page. Make some form of G chord so that sounds good. Now
karate chop, mute down. You might hear a little sound. Try it again.
Karate chop, mute down. So that's the basic technique.
I encourage you to experiment just a little bit get a feel for it
and then we're going to apply it to a very simple strum
to start off with.
Okay you got me. I just wanted to show off that beautiful sunset that
I caught across the street from my house. I hope it helped you relax a little bit.
We're going to go ahead and add something to this. It'll actually make it
sound better and a little more fun to practice perhaps.
We're going to add an up strum. As you mute on the way down, it adds a kind of a
percussive sound. Now on the way up you release it and
together
it creates a rhythm pattern. A kind of percussive sound. Now this is a strum
that you can use in some songs. Listen.
Okay for those of you who are much younger than me, maybe you
don't recognize it. It's a Beatles song so I know a classic not an
oldie, a classic. So this is a great strum to get a lot of practice in
on this new technique. But you'll notice what I'm doing, I'm muting
and moving the pick at the same time so we're closing that gap. It's not
mute and then tick down. They go together. Try that with me first - karate chop and
pick at the same time. A little awkward, huh. Try it again. Stop
and pick goes down. Again. Chop and pick goes down.
This should take some practice unless you're a natural-born genius.
Let's try it now with the up strum so we're going to karate chop on the way
down and then release on the way up so all
the strings will ring. Try it with me. Ready, go and up.
I think you figured out making a G chord. Again.
Chop and up. Let's move over to this side here. A
little bit sound hole, right? Go chop and up. Works, huh.
A little different sound. Again. Now let's try it over way back over here
near the bridge. See if we get right close to the bridge.
Go.
A little more noise, huh. Sound. Music. There we go again.
Now try hitting your hand right on the bridge. Let's do that. Ready,
hit it.
That doesn't work. Okay, let's try it way up here.
Actually is a thing. Try it. Go.
That works. It can be used in some situations very percussive.
No tone at all when I hit the strings. It just sounds like a
drum beat. A kind of a snare beat. Okay, let's try it
consistently slowly but one after the other and
anywhere you hit on the strings go for it. Here we go.
Go. Up. Again. Up. Again. Up.
Again. How's it going?
Okay, breathe. Again. Go. Again.
Last time.
Now again you'll need to practice it and if you're finding this particularly
difficult don't worry. I have another way to come
at this so hang in there and we'll get to it in a little bit. Now
we're going to add something to make this into a longer full strum
that you can use over and over and add a few variations
and it doubles and triples its value of course
all the while you're practicing the mute technique
so it's going to sound like this. We're gonna go down
up right no mute then mute and then up and do that twice
that's one full strum. If I were to count it, it would look like this
one and two and three and four and that's the whole strum so try
the first half with me. We're gonna go down
up and then mute and then up. Ready, go. Down, up.
Now mute and the pick goes down at the same time and up.
Again G chord by the way. Ready go down, up, mute, up. Do it again.
Down, up, mute, up. We just did one whole strum. Let's do it.
Again. Now I'm gonna start tightening up instead of making the motion like this
which I did for demonstrations. I'm gonna stay closer to the strings
which is how I actually play. Down, up, up.
You can change your dynamics this way by the way also
meaning louder and softer . Closer to the strings is softer,
louder
and of course these are the kind of things that makes the song sound musical.
Let's get back to the basic technique. Ready
down, up, mute, up, down, up, mute, up, down, up, mute, up, down, up, mute, up.
We need some chords. We got the G chord but let's make it more interesting by
adding a C chord. You can use any form of the C that
you want. I'm gonna use this four finger C.
I got my third finger on the sixth string third fret. Pick it right next to
it. So this is going to move up two frets
and form some form of D chord. Listen.
Kind of a cool sound huh because some of these strings are still open so
this is kind of suspended sound. So all together it's going to be G,
C, the D and back to C. Let's start one full strum each and I'll go slow. So
try this with me. You got to try it. It's not going to work
out just in your head. Here we go. Ready go
down, up, mute, up, that's half a strum. Again down, mute, up.
Okay now to that C chord. Any C you want really is fine.
Go.
Now move it up two frets to the D. Do it.
Cool sound. Now back to C. Go.
Let's do it again. Start with G. Go
and C
D
back to C. One more time. Start with G.
You got this.
Now I promised I'd show you another way to come at this. A lot of people find it
very helpful to practice muting single strings first
and the technique is easier because you don't have to cover so many strings with
your right hand not only that but it's a useful
technique in and of itself. Let me show you what I mean.
Now muting just like we talked about with the cruddy chop of my hand
and at the same time I'm moving my pick with my thumb. It's a good way to
practice small movements. Let me just show you those
notes that I'm playing right quick but of course any notes will work for this
technique. I'm making a little pattern with a third
fret on the sixth string, second fret on the fifth string. I'm
using the pinky on the fifth fret on the fifth string
and then I go over to the fifth string third fret
fourth string second fret and pinky here on the fifth fret of the
fourth string. Now I'm using the pinky on the fifth string,
third finger on the fourth string fourth fret. I'm using my first finger on the
second fret of the third string and then I come down to the beginning by
going down the fifth string third fret, second fret
pinky on the sixth string and then back where I started.
All together it sounds like this
and if you wanted to make it more interesting or more fun to practice you
could up it by adding a little rhythm to it.
Listen.
I know we've covered a lot kind of like riding the bike.
It's easy to explain but it takes a while to get the hang of it. I encourage
you to watch the video again and if you'd like
some more help, check out my real guitar success guitar program.
Thanks for joining me for this lesson. If you appreciate what I'm doing
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soon. Bye.