Palm muting :evil:

[Cripes]

Since I've been learning one-dimensional picking - flatpicking - I've discovered that palm muting is something I cannot do. The fingernails on that hand just clatter away on the pickguard. If I try to get the finger tips out of the way I lose the natural grip on the pick.

 

So, I just barre everything and let the fretting hand do the muting. I know it's not the same effect but that's the best I can do. So I'll never get that Neil Young damping but, what the hell, only Neil can do Neil anyway.

[Cldplytkmn]

when i want to damp strings with my picking hand, i rotate my wrist toward the bridge... it changes the angle of the pick to your hand and makes it easier for me to hit the strings with the fleshy palm.

[knockwood]

 

what the hell, only Neil can do Neil anyway.

 

 

So frustratingly true. When I play "Cowgirl in the Sand" or "Old Man" or "Heart of Gold," I can't help but feel like I'm light by five or six dimensions.

 

But... If you keep playing a {censored}load of Neil tunes, you'll get closer by default. Funny, you said "flatpicking" and "palm muting" in a sentence and I immediately thought "Neil Young," before I scrolled to your second paragraph. I am kind of a flatpick spazz myself. I like the volume and clarity I can get with a pick... I'm just so used to using my fingers that with a pick I always feel a bit like an elephant on stilts... with ice skates on the stilts...

[Cripes]

I was at GC tonight picking up a guitar and heard someone playing in the acoustic room a flamenco piece quite handily. Being nosey, I migrated over and there sat this fellow about a billion years old popping notes faster than a browning in full auto with a flat pick on this 10 string thing-a-ma-bob - 5 courses - as he casually looked around the room. There's still time!

[Hudman]

I started out playing classic rock and metal. I used a flat pick (or tapping) exclusively until the last year and a half. Palm muting comes natural to me. The side of my palm ests lightly against the strings next to the bridge. My fingers float above the soundboard.

 

Fingerstyle is a challenge. I feel like a rookie when I lay down my pick. I have trouble using my ring finger. My index and middle fingers take over. I also have trouble doing alternating bass lines with my thumb while playing the melody with my fingers on up-tempo stuff.

[Cripes]

That'll come fast enough. I started with what you are using now and then before long the fingers all became independent of each other. Now I rely on my little finger to play the bulk of the melody and give a piece a fuller complement of notes. But, I switch to the ring finger for accentuated notes and "heavier" picking. I do that mostly because the attack angle of the little finger doesn't give me the punch I need for certain notes or pieces.

 

To practice the fingerstyle I played hours of arpeggios (just learned the meaning of that word a couple months ago) thumb to little finger back to thumb in a rolling motion. This helped me in a huge way. Besides, I liked the sound and after a while you will be able to mix up the fingers and beats and syncopation and it really starts to be rewarding.

[kwakatak]

 

when i want to damp strings with my picking hand, i rotate my wrist toward the bridge... it changes the angle of the pick to your hand and makes it easier for me to hit the strings with the fleshy palm.

 

 

Yup, that's kinda what I do: tilt the hand back a little, reach down a little with the pick and hit the string with the pick and the heel of my hand right above the wrist simultaneously. The result is a sort of percussive palm mute.

[brahmz118]

Don't give up on it. The controlled power of palm-muted strings is, in my opinion, an essential tool in the rhythm guitarist's toolbox.

 

I can palm mute, but I envy your ability to pick with the little finger. My little finger is often planted below the soundhole during fingerstyle, but when palm muting it's just a dead extension of the base of my hand. Otherwise it would probably feel very unnatural to lay my palm across the strings, a position which basically neutralizes the little finger.

[Cripes]

When I taught myself fingerstyle it was purely out of ignorance of proper technique, by conventions anyway, and I thought all 5 were supposed to be used. After I got proficient enough I bought some how-to books and found out the little finger was not supposed to be used. Imagine that.

[dmn23]

The little finger isn't supposed to be used?

 

Great. You've just killed 27 years of personal technique. Thanks.

 

People still give me grief about the way I fret an open D chord. Does anyone else play the F# on the first string with your index finger and the A with your middle finger?

[Cripes]

Yes. I play it any way I need to, especially when I'm coming back to the chord. Lot's of people play it that way when playing blues in the key of A. That's a good way to hold it when you're throwing in a lot of other notes you can't get when holding it with the first 3 fingers.

[guitarist21]

 

Since I've been learning one-dimensional picking - flatpicking - I've discovered that palm muting is something I cannot do. The fingernails on that hand just clatter away on the pickguard. If I try to get the finger tips out of the way I lose the natural grip on the pick. So, I just barre everything and let the fretting hand do the muting. I know it's not the same effect but that's the best I can do. So I'll never get that Neil Young damping but, what the hell, only Neil can do Neil anyway.

 

 

I'm so the opposite of you. I can't fingerpick well at all. I like the sound. I like to try and fingerpick. But it never sounds any good.

 

Ellen

[Cripes]

Ellen, there are times when you have a guitar in your arms, you are basically kind of rutted into you have no idea what, the guitar is dead weight and you're ready to call it for the night. Use your 5 fingers for 5 minutes and practice your fingerstyle arpeggios.

 

You know, I find arpeggios much easier to do using all 5 fingers.

[brahmz118]

 

I'm so the opposite of you. I can't fingerpick well at all. I like the sound. I like to try and fingerpick. But it never sounds any good.

 

 

Again it's easy for me to say don't give up on this. Though I suppose I'm being a little hypocritical whenever I use that simple phrase, since there are lots of things that I've concluded I'll never do on guitar. But if you want to add the sound to your arsenal I think you can do it.

 

My first attempts at palm muting were successful, so I got hooked easily. My first attempts at fingerpicking all sounded like the first few chords in Don McLean's Vincent, and that actually kept me happy for many months while my fingers gradually got stronger.

[JasmineTea]

Hmm. Palm muting. I never realy thought about it till now. Lets see...

 

2nd 3rd and 4th fingers just seem to know how to stay out of the way.

 

Typically it's the lower strings that get muted, and then only on the attack. After the attack I let them ring, a muted ring, mind you.

 

So, the muting happens symiltaniously with the attack. Sounds like I'm thumping a bass drum, after which you hear the muted ring of the string. *thump-thumpmmmmm*

[Cripes]

That's a good description of what I hear only add the clack of fingernails. I'm working on getting the fingers out of the way. Muscle memory from fingerstyle I think is the culprit here.

[Buzzy]

Yeah , Cripes, I couldn't do it for five years, then on Thursday,

I watched Blindboy's video on you tube, now I'm starting to get it!

It's at about five minutes in here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-6f-gLSWGo&mode=related&search=

where he explains exactly how to mute.And if you have high speed internet access you are in business. He's got tons of Neil young lessons and they are right on.