Palm Mute
Palm muting is the technique used to semi-mute or muffle a note by plucking it with the strumming hand gently resting on the strings. This takes a bit of practice to master.
As palm muting can often span a fair amount of notes, the technique is usually displayed above or below each line as “PM” or “P” followed by the series of notes it covers.
e|--------------------------------------------
B|--------------------------------------------
G|--------------------------------------------
D|--------------------------------------------
A|-----2-------------7-2-------------7--------
E|-----0-0-0-0-0-0-0---0-0-0-0-0-0-0----------
--------|-PM--------|---|-PM--------|
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
To correctly and accurately palm-mute a note, place the edge of your palm of your strumming hand on the bridge of the guitar, slightly hanging over onto the strings. (play around with the position of your palm to increase or decrease the amount of muting as desired).
Its all about getting your palm to block the notes off just enough. If you were to play with your palm too far over the strings, you would get a heavily muted sound, rather than the nice powerful palm-muted notes. If your hand was too far over the bridge and barely touching the strings, your notes would sound more like open notes with lots of resonation rather than muted or muffled notes.
This technique is widely used across the rock and metal genres by rhythm guitarists. A lot of riffs you hear will contain palm mutes. You can palm-mute as little as one note in a riff or even the entire riff. An interesting idea is to experiment with palm muting different sequences of a riff. I will show you a couple of examples below. Don’t expect to be able to play all of these examples at speed first go, start off slowly and gradually build them up.
We are going to play in a standard 4/4 time signature and repeat 4 bars of the same pattern, and for the purpose of the exercise the palm muted notes will be black and the open notes are going to be shown in red. – This will make it easier to determine the notes.
Example 1:
e|---------|---------|---------|---------|
B|---------|---------|---------|---------|
G|---------|---------|---------|---------|
D|---------|---------|---------|---------|
A|---------|---------|---------|---------|
E|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|
-|PM--|----|PM--|----|PM--|----|PM--|
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Example 2:
e|---------|---------|---------|---------|
B|---------|---------|---------|---------|
G|---------|---------|---------|---------|
D|---------|---------|---------|---------|
A|---------|---------|---------|---------|
E|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Example 3:
e|---------|---------|---------|---------|
B|---------|---------|---------|---------|
G|---------|---------|---------|---------|
D|---------|---------|---------|---------|
A|---------|---------|---------|---------|
E|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Now for a harder one. This pattern spans across two bars, so watch that each bar is different.
Example 4:
e|---------|---------|---------|---------|
B|---------|---------|---------|---------|
G|---------|---------|---------|---------|
D|---------|---------|---------|---------|
A|---------|---------|---------|---------|
E|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Now we add one more open note the the second bar of example 4 and we have..
Example 5:
e|---------|---------|---------|---------|
B|---------|---------|---------|---------|
G|---------|---------|---------|---------|
D|---------|---------|---------|---------|
A|---------|---------|---------|---------|
E|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-|
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.