No matter how new or seasoned, the goal of any musician is to have your music sound smooth without interruptions. Playing in a manner in which everything is smooth and connected is called legato. While this playing style is mostly chased after, it isn’t always easy to achieve or maintain. This is due mainly to notes being played for too long or strings not being muted when they should.
Figuring out how to mute the guitar string depends on how you choose to play. Whether you are right or left-handed and how comfortable you are with guitar playing can all contribute to the way in which you mute guitar strings. It is also essential that you practice including it into your regular playing style if you want to learn how to mute guitar strings effectively.
Different String Muting Styles
You can mute strings with either your left hand or your right hand, depending on what you use to control the guitar or which hand is on the neck of the guitar controlling the chords. However, be assured that you can still achieve a great playing style no matter what hand is dominant.
No matter what hand you use as your dominant hand or what hand you use to play guitar, they can be done the same way with the opposite hand with all of these moves. These muting styles are based upon right-handed guitars, which are far more common than left-handed.
The most important things to remember when trying to learn how to mute strings are:
- Pay attention to the pressure you put on the strings.
- Avoid extra noise on the strings.
- Muting strings need to be worked seamlessly into your playing style.
Left Hand
When playing guitar, your left hand will be in the shape of a C, with your thumb on the back of the neck of the guitar. Your fingers will extend onto the fret strings, and you want to position your hand so you can comfortably reach all of the strings with your fingertips.
If you don’t use your fingertips to play frets, your fingers could unintentionally mute strings when you don’t want them to, causing playing issues.
Left-hand Lift
When playing a fret, if you want the sound to stop or be muted, simply lifting the string’s pressure can stop the sound. You do not want to raise your finger completely off of the string because doing this could cause extra noise or too sharp of a cut-off.
Now, doing this too slow can cause the sound to fade slowly instead of muting. You can use this technique in many ways to create slow fades or abrupt endings, depending on what the music calls for.
Left-Hand Touch
The second way that you can mute a guitar string is to use any finger of the left hand to touch the string that is making noise. You can actually move your entire hand in some cases to mute the string, or you can simply lift one finger and reach over to lightly touch the string.
We want to try and apply very light pressure with the very tips of our fingers. Pressing the string could cause unwanted or unnecessary noise or an inability to play the next notes or chords as needed. You need to keep control of the other strings that you are playing with your other fingers while muting the one string.
In some cases, you can also play notes with the pad of your finger so that you can touch the string that you want to be muted at the same time you are playing another note. This is called “sloppy” playing because you are not using the tips of your fingers, but in reality, you are simply doing two things simultaneously and hopefully not being sloppy about it at all.
A few great things about left-hand muting are:
- You can manipulate the sound of notes much more than right-hand muting.
- It’s usually easier to mute with the left hand due to more intentional movement.
- It’s easier to incorporate into normal playing styles.
Pinky Muting
Pinky muting is a simple but a little less effective way to mute any of your guitar strings. It can work in a lot of situations for what you need it to do, but you definitely need to practice it before trying to do it in the middle of the song.
The biggest thing about pinky muting is making sure you can apply the right amount of pressure and get the timing perfect. When playing a chord that doesn’t involve a particular finger, you can actually use any finger to do this technique, but the pinky is the most common.
The way you use this muting method is to play a chord and simply let the unused finger fall over the strings, effectively muting them. Now, the key is to let your finger fall onto all of the strings simultaneously. Letting your finger fall onto each string individually will create a slower and unintentional muting effect string-by-string.
While it takes some practice, it can definitely be a helpful method to muting your guitar strings. You don’t need to worry about how much pressure to apply because you are literally letting your pinky fall onto the strings all at once.
(Source: Music Raider, Justins Guitar, Your Guitar Guide)
Right Hand
When holding and playing guitar, your right arm should be draped over the body of the guitar, and your hand should be resting right in front of the sound hole where the strings are. Holding a guitar too high or too low can cause strain, muscle fatigue, and poor playing practices.
If you are standing while holding a guitar, your arm may be more straightened out instead of being bent at the elbow, but your hand should still be in the same place. When standing, you should be able to use a guitar strap to help hold and fix your guitar’s height.
Right-hand muting is a great skill because:
- You can usually cover it up by strumming movement.
- Any accidental string noise won’t be as noticeable as using your left hand.
Right-Hand Thumb
You don’t have to only use the left hand to mute the strings. You can use your right hand to mute the string further down on the body of the guitar. You can do this by using the side of your right-hand thumb to mute one or more strings.
Simply moving your thumb over to the strings you want to be muted and placing it on the string with minimal pressure can allow you to stop the noise. You can make this move look seamless by placing your thumb, muting the string, and then using your thumb to play the next note without taking it off the guitar.
This will make it look like you only placed your thumb there to prepare for the next note.
Plant
When you are first learning to play guitar, you will likely start placing your fingers on the strings before you start playing the note. This instills confidence in your ability to play correctly, and it makes you feel prepared.
As you get better at playing the guitar, you will most likely stop placing your fingers on the strings before the note needs to be played and will probably place your fingers when the note needs to be played. You will have more trust in your ability to place your fingers correctly.
If you are playing a song and need the strings to be muted, simplifying placing your fingers on the strings for the next note that you need to play will mute the strings, allowing you to be ready for the next note.
Karate-Chop
In-between playing notes, or if you just need a hard stop to the end of a song, you can use what is called the karate chop method of muting strings. Using the outside of your pinky finger on your right-hand, you can apply a quick, intentional pressure or chop to mute all of the strings at once.
You have to make sure that your “chop” doesn’t cause the strings to hit the fretboard, which would cause unintentional sound. You can also use the outside of your palm on the pinky side of your hand if using your pinky hurts.
The Fade
If you want your strings muted but would prefer a different effect other than the sudden stop, you can use the fade technique. This creates an effect where the notes fade into silence rather than cutting them off suddenly.
If you simply do a slight “chop” with your hand onto the bridge, then roll the rest of your hand forward until the sound stops completely. While this creates more of an effect of the volume being turned down, it still has a sudden feeling to it due to the chop at the beginning.
This skill is used most often for:
- Dramatic endings to slower songs
- Songs that need their notes to be suddenly connected
- Songs that have a wide range of dymanics.
Pizzicato
While this technique is mostly used for a long-term effect, it still causes strings to be muted and notes to stop playing rather quickly, so it is considered a muting technique. When you play in a pizzicato type of style, you are effectively making your notes very short and plucky sounding.
The way to do this is to play the strings with your thumb as the “pick” while the rest of your hand is resting on the strings behind your thumb. This will allow you to play notes but won’t allow them to continue on for very long, causing a sudden and “thuddy” sound.
Those who usually play bass guitar are known for using this technique to make their playing style sound more intense and intentional.
Palm Mute
The biggest thing about palm muting is that it doesn’t completely remove the noise or completely mute the strings. You want to apply enough pressure so that it changes the volume and the resonance, but not so much that it completely stops the notes altogether.
While this is similar to pizzicato in the way that you place your hand, the amount of pressure you are using creates different effects. When using your thumb to strum or pluck the strings, your middler, index, and pinky finger should be resting on the strings behind your pointer and thumb.
You need to barely be resting your hand here. Otherwise, you will deaden the sound too quickly, and it will sound too sudden. You only need to rest the outside of your palm on the guitar, while the rest of your fingers can lay on top of your pinky to create perfect pressure.
You also need to be careful of hand placement because if your hand is too close to the bridge and your notes will sound longer and lounder. If your hand is too close to the neck, it will sound sudden and quick.
(Source: Justins Guitar, Your Guitar Guide, Acoustic Guitar, Tom Hess)
Muting Higher Strings
In some cases, it may be necessary to mute the strings that are higher up on the fretboard to help achieve the right notes or sound that you want for your song. One way to do this is to use your pointer finger.
Stretching your pointer finger and laying it all the way across the fretboard will mute the strings above where your pointer finger is placed. You don’t want to put too much pressure on the strings; otherwise, they will sound like regular fretted notes.
Place just enough pressure to mute the noise, but make sure they are not touching the fretboard. You can change up the strings that you need to mute by only allowing the top half of your finger to rest on the top 2 or 3 strings.
If you need to mute strings on the lower half, you can use your right hand to put pressure while picking with your other fingers. Placing one or two fingers on the strings you want to mute while playing will create a fantastic form, as well as effectively muting unwanted notes.
Muting Tools
In some cases, you want your string dampened for a duration of time that would be difficult to achieve with only using your finger. Either you need it for an entire song or an entire set, and trying to lay your finger across the fretboard the entire time, won’t work for very long.
You can buy devices that attach to your guitar that apply enough pressure to your strings to dampen the sound. They are usually backed with a rubber or nonslip type material or made with fabric, so they don’t scratch the neck, and they won’t shift or slip while you are playing.
While some say that tools are ways of cheating while playing guitar, they actually can give you several great abilities such as:
- More control over note dynamics
- More confidence when playing
- The ability to focus on correct notes and timing rather than muting.
Cabo’s
Cabo’s can be put on the guitar neck kind of like a clothespin and apply a generous amount of pressure to completely cut off sound from all strings that are above wherever it is placed on the neck.
Cabo’s are incredibly useful tools for people who are playing a huge variety of styles of music in a short period of time or people who just enjoy playing around with new sounds. It can help limit the amount of work you have to do to achieve a sound or certain chord progressions, especially if you are new at playing.
String Dampeners
String dampeners are put on the neck of a guitar like a bracelet, either slipped on at the very end and moved to the desired location or wrapped around and fastened. They can significantly clean up any unwanted or extra string sound that can otherwise ruin a perfectly good song or chord.
You can shift them as far up or down on the neck as you want them. They don’t apply as much pressure as a Cabo, but definitely enough to keep the strings quiet when they don’t need to be making noise.
There are quite a few different string dampers out there that all give you different muting levels and different affordability levels. You can usually find a guitar store near you to try out different devices like this so you can figure out which one is best for you.
| Type Of Dampener | Price | Effect |
| Hair Tie or Scrunchie | $1-$5 |
|
| Fret Wraps | $10-$50 |
|
What Technique Do I Use And When?
Trying to figure out how and why we would use certain muting techniques over other ones is something that comes with practice, time, and experience. The biggest thing that you need to pay attention to is how the notes end and how they relate to each other in a song.
If a note shouldn’t connect to the next note, you want to use a muting technique that is sudden and quick, like the chop or a touch. With both of these techniques, you can control the pressure and therefore control just how sudden that note stops.
However, if you want the notes to suddenly connect or barely feed into each other, you can use techniques like the fade. This will allow for almost constant noise, but at such different highs and lows that it will give the song body and feeling.
Other muting practices can be used to help create good playing habits, to help clean up sloppy playing styles, or new learning mistakes. Planting your fingers or touching strings in-between notes will clean up the way songs should sound.
(Source: Acoustic Guitar, Tom Hess)
Tips For Learning How To Mute Strings
Learning how to mute strings is not a skill that you just happen to acquire; it takes practice to learn how to effectively help mute strings without any kind of tool. However, there are a few tips that can help you get better quicker or easier.
Learn As Early As Possible
If it is possible for you, while you are learning to play the guitar, go ahead and start including how to mute string into your daily practice. It may seem incredibly difficult at first, but learning everything all at once is better than learning how to play and then going back to add another skill.
The sooner you can start practicing and learning how to mute strings, the better. Make sure you start including that practice in your daily or weekly playing periods. Skills are like muscles; if you don’t use them, you can lose them.
Recording yourself when you practice or play gives you an excellent opportunity to go back and hear the mistakes that may have been made. It also gives you a baseline for what it sounds like with and without muting techniques.
Recognizing the difference between effective muting and ineffective muting techniques will help improve your form and ability to do this effortlessly. Make it a regular practice to record yourself and listen to it over a few times to ensure that you catch the mistakes, or just to recognize the differences between effective muting and ineffective techniques.
Do Your Research
When trying to find the correct hand placement and form for any type of string muting, you have to do your research. There will not be only one way to place your hand when you mute strings in any form. You have to find what is comfortable enough for you to play well and effectively mute the string while also making sure you’re not risking the next notes’ integrity.
While there isn’t only one way, there is a general basis of form that comes with knowing how to mute strings, and you have to start there. Once you figure out how a few people do it, you will be able to make your form feel comfortable but efficient.
(Source: Guitar Adventures, Music Raider)
Things Not To Do When Muting Strings
Of course, as with anything, there are definitely things that can go wrong when you try and use string muting techniques. There are definite do’s and don’ts when muting strings because it can affect other notes, or in some cases, ruin the tone of a song.
Moving Too Much
If you are having to move your hand completely out of form to mute a string, you are not doing it correctly. When you mute a string, you want to make sure your hand or finger can go back to play the next note as quickly and efficiently as possible.
In almost all cases, you should be able to move one or two fingers less than an inch to effectively mute the guitar strings you need to mute. Anything more than that, and you may be using the wrong finger or playing something wrong from the beginning.
Muting strings are supposed to be a helpful tool, not something to make you have to work harder. When used correctly, muting guitar strings will be the difference between a good guitar player and a great guitar player.
Applying Too Much Pressure
A lot of new guitar players think that they have to put a lot of pressure on the strings to get them to mute or not make noise. However, this is definitely not the case. Putting too much pressure on strings can actually cause more noise than just resting a finger or hand on them.
The goal is to put just enough pressure to calm or stop the string’s vibration, therefore eliminating or lessening the noise. You should be able to simply lay your finger on them, and without adding any more effort than that, they should stop.
If they don’t stop immediately, you can add a small amount of pressure, but you don’t want the strings to really move. Moving the strings too much can cause unnecessary noise and sloppy playing sounds.
Not Knowing How To Use A Tool
If you are not sure how a Capo or string dampener works, it is best not to use it in a setting where you need to sound your best until you have time to figure it out. While these tools are here to help you and make playing sound better, they could make your issues worse without prior knowledge of how to use them.
Give yourself plenty of practice and research time before trying to use any muting or dampening tools on your guitar. You want to be as comfortable as possible before relying on it to do the work for you. When used correctly, the tool that you are using should make your job easier, not harder.
When you first begin learning how to use the tool, it may be challenging to get used to, but over time it should lessen the work that you have to put in while playing.
(Source: Acoustic Guitar, Your Guitar Guide)
Final Thoughts
Guitar playing is such a great skill to have, and if you are well-versed, you most likely have clean and sharp notes and tones. This is likely related to your ability to use string muting techniques throughout your playing time.
Using string muting techniques is such a great skill to have because it can be the thing that takes your ability to a new level. Though, the even better thing is knowing multiple types of muting techniques to help you in any scenario.
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