Share your best tips and trick for muting when playing loud!

[Joost Assink]

One of the hardest things on electric guitar (especially when playing loud with OD) is making sure you don't hear anything but the note you're playing. This is especially tricky when doing bends and/or vibrato. It's hard not to hear the adjacent strings. I try to use both my right and my left hand to mute where-ever I'm not playing, but it's hard. Especially when you want to have a loose wrist for picking.

What are your best tips and tricks to clean up your playing? Be as detailed as you can be

 

[doralin]

There really isn't any other way other than to practice.

If you've only just started then that's a journey you've got to go on.

What I do most of the time is, try to make the fingers of my fretting hand lay flat on the fretboard. This relaxes my fingers and also allows for a cleaner sound on the 1st 3 strings. My picking hand will then mute the bottom 3 strings.

That's all there is to it. Those tips are something I learned a long while ago and read it recently in one of Guthrie Govan's books.

 

[Austinrocks]

pretty much have to be able to mute very string, if you play on stage you find that it has to be done all the time, just from the noise on stage, everything will get the strings going, drums monitors ect.

gets second nature after awhile, thumb over the top to mute the E and A strings, fretting fingers held low to the strings, fleshy parts muting the adjacent strings, you should be able to play all strings and sound none, then work on the individual strings, play all, sounding one at a time, you can palm mute as well, but for me that is an effect and I prefer to mute the strings with my fretting hand, you can what SRV he is brilliant with this.

 

[buddastrat]

Yeah but SRV got a lot of over ring too because he didn't mute with his picking hand as well. He also played with a cleaner tone, If he was playing high gain it would've sounded messy as there are lots of sympathetic vibrations. But for that texas shuffle style which welcomes some open string ring you don't need the pick hand muting. For rock and higher gain stuff, muting every string you're not playing with both hands is very important

 

[stevel]

One of the hardest things on electric guitar (especially when playing loud with OD) is making sure you don't hear anything but the note you're playing. This is especially tricky when doing bends and/or vibrato. It's hard not to hear the adjacent strings. I try to use both my right and my left hand to mute where-ever I'm not playing, but it's hard. Especially when you want to have a loose wrist for picking.

What are your best tips and tricks to clean up your playing? Be as detailed as you can be

Listen to the beginnig of "Foxey Lady" by Hendrix. You'll hear Jimi playing a note, and vibratoing it madly, and you'll hear it "bumping into" the adjacent strings.

Sometimes, muting is not necessary.

Don't get too critical of it. Mute what you feel needs to be muted (I use both LH and RH, and even individual fingers on each hand in some cases) but personally, I proceed with the understanding that when strumming, or playing "funky" things, "accidental" notes are a part of the style (and in some styles, compulsory).

It's not "sloppy", but just "understood".

I always avoid sloppiness (or rather, I attempt to avoid it).

Steve

 

[buddastrat]

Excellent point Stevel. I always loved that noise in there with the vibrato on Foxey. Certain styles just call for certain techniques. I call the Hendrix and SRV style of playing greasy where some slop is allowed. Funk stuff too like you pointed out. You want that loose wrist type playing.

But if playing a classical riff or something like Cliffs of Dover or some shreddy type licks. more attention to perfecting control skills for that kinda thing. That's why sometimes distortion gets a bad rap because people say it covers up slop, when it magnifies these issues to my ears. Even great players who practice/play clean most of the time can sound pretty bad with overdrive.

 

[JiveJust]

Watch a Steve Morse instructional video. That will get you started.