In grade 2, Justin introduces palm muting. From what I understood, to do this as Justin describes, you have to have your strumming hand very near the bridge as he suggests moving the hand forward to get more muting and back to the bridge for less muting. At least that’s what I understood.
I have both S and T style guitars. I can palm mute as Justin describes much better and more comfortably on the tele than the Strat.
This is frustrating me as I think I should be able to do it on the Strat. My problem is that if my strumming hand is very near the bridge then the volume knob is in the way.
I found another way to palm mute using the Strat where I have my hand in a more comfortable position, more or less stumming over the middle pick-up, and muting the strings there with my palm. But I’m worried thats just a bad habit I’m picking up and that I shouldn’t be doing it.
Any advice? There must be loads of happily palm muting Strat players in the community.
First, try doing what feels more comfortable. Then once you get good at that, you can try doing it the way that he says it. Practice makes perfect. If you’ve learned power chords, you can probably try basket case by green day as an exercise or just palm mute while playing power chords.
And probably loads of strugglers as well. I also find it hard to palm-mute on my Strat, so I decided to make it as hard as possible by keeping the tremolo arm in the way too. I figured that if I could do it under those circumstances, I could do it any time. It’s something I’m working on right now, with Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’. I’ll be checking out the suggestions above.
oh I’ve heard plenty of complaints from strat owners about the location of that volume knob getting in the way of a variety of things. of course I’m sure the location of the volume knob on strats makes other things easier.
palm muting on my Les Paul is “easy enough” but I have a lot of work to do to consistently get my strumming hand in the right spot to get exactly the tone I’m after. It’s a fine balance.
Thanks @stitch and everyone else who replied. As confirmed by some of you, my work around is not a good one and is a bad habit I should correct asap. I don’t want to make permanent something that’s wrong.
I watched the video embedded by @stitch where he recommends basically what I was trying to do on the Strat (but in my case, with little success). However, the YT feed then showed me another more helpful video on this topic. His basic recommendation is exactly the same as Justin’s but he goes into more detail about how to palm mute just strings 4,5,6 for power chords and more detail on technique for palm muting all strings, particularly 1,2,3. He also demonstrates on a Strat (which is helpful for me) and says a bit about the challenge of doing this on a Strat because of the volume knob.
Having looked at these videos, my learning g path of this will be to firstly keep practicing on the tele to get it just right. Then try on my Yamaha Pacifica (which has a volume control set lower than a real Strat) and then finally on my self-built Strat which has the volume control in the standard place. I reckon that if I can do it on my home built Strat then I can probably do it on any guitar. My Strat volume knob is very loose and a tiny touch will completely change the volume (something. have to eventually fix - but can’t be bothered now).
BTW: I can palm mute the strings on my Strat during power chords (not with the necessary precision) but at the moment I’m practicing Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty. There’s a link section in that song after verses 3 and 4 where subtle palm muting is used on the same chord sequence as the verse - D Gsus2 D Asus4 - which is very challenging for me. Also challenging is the change from regular strumming of this song to the part with some palm muting.
I was going to write that 90% of palm muting is only on the lower strings, so that strat vol knob shouldn’t be a major problem, but then I saw this:
Is the palm-muting required on the treble strings also? I ask because I generally see palm muting required only on the lower strings. In the intro to the video you posted, that guy plays a bit of funk lead with palm muting on the treble strings, but that is pretty advanced (and niche) stuff. I’d be curious to see the tutorial of Free Fallin’ where palm muting is used on the treble strings. Are you working from Justin’s tutorial (https://www.justinguitar.com/songs/tom-petty-free-fallin-chords-tabs-guitar-lesson-st-407)?
You are right that a lot of palm muting is often on the lower strings and I guess Justin does not intend students at my level to be trying palm muting using the chord sequence D Gsus2 D Asus4.
Justin doesn’t go into a lot of detail about the link section of that song. In the original song video, he put a capo on the first fret when discussing the link section which wasn’t very helpful. However, the lesson was updated not long ago and is now made so that 2 guitars can play the song as a duet and the link part he discusses refers to the 2nd guitar and uses other chords and with a capo on the 1st fret, and where the muting can be done on the lower strings only. I’ll have to watch it again. I’m on my own (playing and singing) and obviously, it’s not possible to put a capo on mid-song, so I’m trying to do the link part with some hand muting but using the chords for guitar 1. I’ll have to watch it again but I think that Justin doesn’t really say what guitar 1 should do during the link section, but I might be wrong.
I also have to re-watch a very good cover of this song by Boyce Avenue on YT where it’s played as a duet and watch closely what guitar 1 and 2 do during the link section. For anyone who likes that song, I think that’s a very good cover with lovely vocals and guitar.
Well my initial post is still valid about palm muting with the strat which is a challenge for me (because of the volume knob), whether its low or high strings!
However, I did go back over the video lesson for that song and it’s not how I remembered at all (probably because in the meantime I’ve watched a few covers online - where there is palm muting in the link).
So in Justin’s lesson, guitar 1 is played with capo on the 3rd fret. Guitar 2 plays with a capo on the 1st fret. Justin shows the link section for the 2nd guitar, but the 2nd guitar plays power chords for the link. Actually Justin doesn’t seem to palm mute them in the lesson although many covers I have heard do palm mute them and I think it sounds better palm muted.
I’m practicing it differently to Justin’s lesson because I have to have the capo on either the 1st or 2nd fret to play guitar 1, but I think I’ve found a work around for playing the link with the capo on the 2nd fret, where I can do palm muting in the link. Hopefully will post a video recording in the not too distant future.
