A cry for help

[equalheights]

Many sfk guitar tabs seem to contain muting of some kind. Like..chords which are meant to be strummed but require cutting out a note in the middle. I've never really got round to figuring this out..how do you go about muting the strings consistantly here..? Help would be much appreciated, its been plaguing me for some time.

- Connor

[Troy Dann]

A lot of it rests on how you hold your pick. You can only really mute properly if you're holding the pick only with the thumb and your index finger and have dexterity in these fingers. Why dexterity? You have to be able to press the pinky-side of the strumming-hand palm against the strings over the bridge and slightly on the strings so it's pretty much perpendicular (how much you do it depends on what sort of guitar you have). By freeing up your middle finger - you can much more easily hold the mute while you can strum.

Here's a picture I found on google

So...

Grab your pick. Place the side of the palm on the bridge (how much, also depends on how much mute you want - lightly obvious gets you a kind of more ringy (duh) sound, while harder gets you a metal-esque thing). Now while holding the palm in place - start strumming. Make sure your palm doesn't move too far up the strings or else you will sharpen the pitch.

(I make the point against the middle finger grip because I used to do this, and it makes muting the e and the B string very difficult)

I hope that helps!

Dan

[Jurds]

most of the muting I do at the bridge is for ther heavy "chugga chugga" stuff.

As far as I can remember the SFK songs that require muting of a string i do with my fretting hand. for example a popular chord shape is:

e-----
b--3--
g--2--
d--0--
a--x--
e--3--

The x is muted by the middle finger hitting the e string. When hitting the e string you have it at such an angle that it comes down and lightly touches the a string causing it to mute.

That is a simple example. Alternatively, please post the chord/s you are having difficulty with and we can explain

HTH

[equalheights]

Cheers Jurds. That chord was actually what i was having trouble with, from a tab of You Only Hide.

INTRO/VERSE
e--3--3------------------------------------3--------
b--3--3---3-------3------3---3---3--3--3---3--------
G--0--0---2h4-----4------4---2h4-2--2--0---0--------
D--0--0---0-------0------x---x-------------0--------
A--x--x---x-------x------2---3-------------x--------
E--3--3---3-------3------0---x-------------3--------

Thats probably completely out of alignment, but anyway...what I was having trouble with was being able to mute the A string where all other fingers on the fretting hand were already taken up...if that makes sense at all. It all seems to be in order now though. Thankyou muchly. Thanks also Dan, even if you misinterpreted my question Agreed about the middle finger thing, I've only recently just learnt to hold a pick. Been doing without one for years.

[Troy Dann]

Haha, sorry I completely missed the "in the middle" bit... but ummm hey no problems!

[Jurds]

No worries dude. Keep practicing and it will become second nature. It's a good skill to have when playing improvised chords.

[Seasick]

Jurds, as usual, is right.

A lot of heavy metal is palm muted, but most of SFK is bridge muted. That is, the dictating fingers.

A small finger-placement can change a whole chord.

I'm waiting for someone to say, well DUH.

[equalheights]

...."Well DUH"

There. I've said it.

I spend way too much time on the internet, i swear...

[Seasick]

Yeah dude I got on myspace today and I was overwhelmed with the amount of crap I put up with.

Communication breakdown? Well my breakdown is that there's way too many people to communicate with!

Bring on real life!