Using Guitar Muting Techniques To Clean Up Your Guitar Sound – Muting Guitar Strings Using Your Picking Hand

Muting guitar strings while playing can be thought of as a form of “musical punctuation.”  Read the following sentence out loud taking note of the punctuation (or lack of it):

“Guitar muting will make your guitar playing sound much cleaner and adds rhythmic punch and definition to your playing learning to mute guitar strings will use both your picking and strumming hands muting guitar strings is often a very subtle looking technique that is difficult to see but it is very easy to hear when it is not being used by the guitar player.”

With no punctuation, it sounds like a run on mess of words.  You can get the idea of what is being said but it isn’t very easy to understand or very pleasant to listen to.  Muting guitar strings at the appropriate times when playing the guitar is very much like punctuation—it’s very noticeable when it’s not there!

Today I want to show you how to use and apply guitar muting with your picking hand to help your guitar playing sound “cleaner.”   Like most guitar techniques, it is very important that you set your hands up properly so that muting guitar strings becomes and effortless part of your guitar technique arsenal.

With this pick hand guitar muting technique, muting guitar strings is done primarily with the side of your pick hand.  Using the side of your pick hand to stop the strings from ringing out in between the chords you are strumming will make your strumming sound much cleaner. You can watch a free video that will show you exactly how to mute guitar strings and place your pick hand to mute your guitar strings.

Learning how to incorporate guitar muting will help your chords sound much cleaner and muting will help you keep your guitar strumming rhythms sounding very precise and “in time” when you play chords.  Muting guitar strings effectively is also tied very closely to using the correct pick grip and pick grip pressure.  Using a good grip on the pick will make it much easier for you to mute your strings in a way that feels natural and comfortable.  Watch this free video that will show you how to mute guitar strings by using the best pick grip.

The final step for muting guitar strings with your pick hand involves learning how to let your hand “bounce” back to the correct position in order to mute your strings after and in between your guitar strums.

Guitar muting is a very valuable technique that will become second nature to you with a bit of practice.  Soon you will use and incorporate it almost automatically without needing to consciously think about it.  Watch the free video on how to mute guitar strings and learn how you can incorporate pick hand string muting into you own guitar playing right now.

Learn how to play in a band even if you are just starting out on the guitar