Palm Muting
Palm Muting is a technique where you rest part of your picking hand palm on top of the strings near the bridge saddles while picking those strings. The effect is that the string's high frequency energy is quickly absorbed by your palm, so you can only hear it during the attack portion of the note, while the lower frequencies continue to resonate. This technique is absolutely essential for most hard rock and metal styles - when used with distortion it provides a signature "djent" sound. It's overall effect is a more percussive sound.
Tab often uses a 'pm', 'p.m.', 'p', 'm', '*' above or below the tab to indicate a palm muted note. '*' can sometimes mean artificial harmonic, though, so be aware.
p p p p ------7---5--- --0-0---0---0-
In the above example, all the open string notes are palm mutes, while the fretted notes are not.
Contents
Technique In-Depth
Honestly, this technique is very simple to describe, but it takes years to absolutely master. The part of the palm you use, its location on the strings, and how hard you press the palm against the strings all affect the tone of the mute you will get. Let's start with some don't's:
- Don't mute too far away from the bridge. The further you place your palm from the bridge, the more it is not simply muting high frequencies but all frequencies.
- Don't push down on the strings too hard with your palm. If you have a floating bridge, you're going to push the strings out-of-tune. Even without it, you don't gain anything you won't get by sliding your palm a little further away from the bridge.
- Don't try to mute with the middle of your palm. How will you pick the strings?!? Use either the part of the palm where it connects to the wrist, or the edge of the palm almost on the side of your hand by the pinky.
- Don't use a different picking stroke when muting. Your normal stroke should work - you are just resting your palm on the strings while making normal picking strokes. You should be able to make down strokes and up strokes without any more or less effort than normal.
- Don't slam your palm into the strings right before playing palm muted notes. You will hear the noise associated with doing so. Your right hand should already be close to the strings - simply move it closer so it touches the strings.
Notice moving your palm further and further away from the point where the strings meet the bridge saddles increases the strength of the mute. Older advice was to keep the palm right on top of the bridge saddles, so that almost all of the low frequency resonance still "got through". Modern players, particularly in djent, are finding that using a mute a bit off the saddles can get a tighter mute, which is important for down-tuned, 7/8-string, or other extended-range guitars.
The palm is ideal for muting because it is soft, fleshy tissue. If for some reason your palm is made of metal, or is extremely bony, or some other rare situation, you may need to wear a glove or figure some other way out to get the right tone. But those are extreme situations. I will say that I've had some weird stuff happen to me in this regard though. When palm muting my extended scale 8-string, I would sometimes notice a ringing sound. Turns out the string I was muting was transferring its energy and frequency to the next string, inducing a harmonic that was also a harmonic of the muted open string. So it is possible for your flesh to transfer energy rather than dissipate it. I adjusted my technique a tad, but mainly I have to focus on muting all open strings I don't want to sound.
Moving Strings while Muting
One of the more difficult parts of palm muting is to play two different strings with a continuous series of palm muted notes. When you palm mute, you are instinctually using your palm as an anchor or pivot point to move your wrist and make your picking stroke. To get the same quality palm mute on the next string involves sliding the palm across strings, which can feel awkward at first. Here are some exercises to practice:
1 n 2 3 n 4 1 n 2 n 3 n 4 n 1 p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p ----------------7--8--10--------------7--8--10----------- --7--8--10-------------------7--8--10----------7--8--10--
1 n 2 3 n 4 1 n 2 n 3 n 4 n 1 p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p ----------------7--8--10--------------7--8--10----------- --------------------------------------------------------- --7--8--10-------------------7--8--10----------7--8--10--
The only difference between the two exercises is that the 2nd one involves skipping a string, which really forces you to slide your palm instead of simply trying to reach for the next string. Both exercises have a little break between the first two string skips. This is so you feel the differences between playing one string, pausing, then playing the next, vs. playing one string directly into another string in-time.
Play both exercises using all down picking, then alternate picking. Try on a few different sets of strings, but mainly concentrate on the thicker ones.
1 n 2 3 n 4 1 n 2 n 3 n 4 n 1 p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p ----------------0--0--0---------------0--0--0------------ --0--0--0--------------------0--0--0-----------0--0--0---
All open strings...should be easy right? WRONG. We need to mute those open strings when we move to the next string. You'll have to use your left-hand fingers to do so. Muting the high string isn't so hard, but muting the lower string can be particularly difficult - you need to reach over the other string without touching it.
Palm Muting and Muting
Palm muted notes may sound pretty extreme, but they actually carry less energy than unmuted notes. That means noise or ringing open strings can be more easily heard when playing palm mutes. Given that palm muting is associated with heavy distortion, it's especially important to mute the unplayed strings. You'll need to use your left-hand to do so. Drape your fingers over the unplayed strings, using just enough pressure to mute them (but don't press them into the frets!), preferably with more than 1 finger to avoid accidentally sounding harmonics.
If the piece you are playing calls for rests (silence) between palm muted notes, you should again use your left hand to perform the mute. Keeping the right hand in palm mute position will help. But to get a proper mute with the right hand, we'd prefer to have it mute the strings a bit further off the bridge. Doing this in between palm mutes is a lot of movement, which in itself is difficult. But given that you'd be sliding your hand back and forth while touching the strings, it's actually counter-productive. Sliding against the strings (even when muted) will create noise. So you'll have to use your left-hand. This doesn't mean simply unfretting the notes you are fretting but getting 2-3 fingers draped on the strings.
d--2--(x)--2-- a--2--(x)--2-- e--0--(x)--0-- p p
Look at the example above. You'll likely fret the 2nd fret on both the A and D strings with your index finger. For that mute between the power chords, I like to not only unfret my index finger (while leaving it in contact with the strings to mute them), but use my middle, ring, and pinky fingers to make sure all 3 strings are fully muted.
When adding more left-hand fingers to mute, make sure you don't slap the strings too hard - that will create a noise of its own. You want to lightly touch them onto the string. It's the multiple points of contact that really help mute the strings and absorb their resonant energy.