Lesson For Palm Muting

*NOTE: you can skip this first paragraph if you want to*

I've seen two other palm muting lessons on UG, and I gotta say, I didn't get a lesson that was in-depth enough for me. Before I read these lessons, I already knew how to palm mute. Anyway, I'll show you in the best way I can right now how to palm mute, and give some tips and that good junk.


Palm muting is a widely used technique that every guitarist should know how to do, whether they use the technique or not. It's just placing your palm (hence the term "palm mute") over the strings by the bridge, and playing notes to give that tight, staccato-like sound.

When I said that palm muting is just placing your palm against the strings by the bridge, you don't actually place your palm on the strings, just part of it. What I do is I place the fulcrum point of my hand and forearm on the bridge, therefore the fulcrum touching the strings, which enables you to pal mute when you play notes.

*NOTE: Don't confuse the bridge and the tailpiece. The bridge is closer to the neck, while the tailpiece is farther from the neck. For those acoustic guitar players, in case you don't know, the tailpiece is the wide brown piece of wood, and the bridge is the narrow white piece of wood.*

If you play a palm muted note that sounds a half-tone higher than you wanted (for example, you would play a B but a C would sound), you're probably pressing too hard, so loosen up!

If you are playing palm muted notes with non-palm muted chords such as this:

e|-----------------------------------|
b|-----------------------------------|
g|-----------------------------------|
d|-----------------------------------|
a|-7---------7---7-7---------7-----7-|
e|-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-|
PM ------- - ------- ---

By the way, the dashes indicate that you should palm mute those notes.
So if you're playing something like that, you'll notice that you either lift your hand or move your hand towards the tail piece when you play non-palm muted notes, but it's most likely that you'll just lift your hand. Also you notice that when you lift your hand to play the chords, you sweep the pick (or thumb) in a circle-like movement, but when you play the mutes, you pick perpendicular to the strings. I don't know why I put that stuff in, but I thought it would help.


Two more things:

1 - You might find it hard to play pinch harmonics (if you know how to play them) after playing a palm muted note. Observe your hand when you play the harmonics and when you play the palm mutes, there's a difference in angle in how you play the two types of notes.

2 - There's also a difference in angle when you play non-palm muted notes and palm muted notes. When playing palm mutes, you might find your hand to be "controlled" and by that I mean not swinging your hand all over the place, and that your hand is more closed in and closer to your palm. When playing normal, non-muted notes, the hand is more relaxed and is farther from the palm.

If you give this lesson a bad rating, it's OK, I was bored and had nothing to do, and it's my first lesson. Hope this helps!


from :Ultimate Guitar