Why would you want to do it on all rock songs? You can practice palm muting if you’re interested in it and in a little while you will recognize it on recordings.
Hi Friends 
I know in tabs that muting is show as the symbols that shows the image attached, but what is the differences between the fist and the second symbol? I assume that first is string muting and the second is palm muting.
The first symbol is a rest - usually mute all strings. Palm muting will show regular tab with “palm muted” or “P.M.” over the top, with the notes you play palm muted. That’s on professionally put together tab, often you just have to listen and decide.
I’m not sure what that second symbol means.
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Half rest (2 beats) for the square sitting on top of the line and quarter rest (1 beat) for the squiggly looking one. If it’s mirroring sheet music, that is.
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I am having difficulties with palm muting and just chugging away on fast 16th notes at double time like the clash or even slower song like Paranoid.
Whats happening is not so much the palm mute itself. I can do it on my acoustic, the problem is on my strat. It seems the volume knob is right where I put part of my hand or, rest my anchor finger, when chugging and suddenly my volume gets turned down if I get into it at all.
I am going to attempt to relearn palm mute free floating my hand above maybe or I dont know. Justin seems to keep his hand way up high just over the string no where near where my volume knob is. Of course he is playing Paranoid on a sweet Gibson SG.
Anyone with any suggestions? I need to chug my heavy distorted power chord on a strat.
I had that problem many years ago.
The easy fix was to just pop off the plastic knob. It will still function perfectly well as a volume control without the knob.
It does however…look like crap.
I understand you can get a felt washer that provides just enough resistance to prevent brushing contact from turning the knob. Sounds like a much more elegant solution, but have not tried it myself.
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Thats a great idea, thank you so much. I looked it up and it seems to be very common. I will try it today, I just recently got an electric and finally trying to get it set up, so lots of new things to consider and work through. Its a bit different that the acoustic. I am loving it.
Thanks again Tbushell
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This one will take a while to learn…
Yeah, I think this is one for me that I am going to have to go to in person lessons to straighten out. I can get it to work occasionally, most of the time, it is just fully muted, or not at all
im using a nylon string guitar and when im muting the strings i cant hear the notes anymore is this because im doing it wrong?
I can’t speak to the nylon string guitar, but I can say a word about palm muting as a beginner. If you’re not hearing any notes, it probably means you’re applying too much pressure on the strings with your palm. Try just barely touching the strings and see if you can get a muted sound. I’ve been working on this for months…it seems to come easily to some people, but not to me!
Another possibility is that your hand is too far from the bridge, which can totally mute the strings.
Experiment by putting the edge of your hand right on the bridge, so there is no muting.
Then move your hand in very small increments up towards the neck. You should find a zone where you can hear the notes, but they won’t ring.
Note that this zone may be very narrow - maybe 1 - 2 mm.
If none of these suggestions work for you, post a video that shows us what you are doing, and we can probably help.
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I’m confused when to use palm muting and when to use fret hand muting in chord patterns. Personally I find fret hand muting (just lifting the fingers off the fret but keeping contact with the strings) easier than palm muting and it gives me a cleaner end to the chords (less ringing out).
I realise that palm muting is ideal for power chords and chugging but for acoustic or clean electric tones, would fret hand muting be more appropriate?
Thanks
@DarkLane: There’s 2 kinds of “muting”, confusingly enough. There’s 1) muting as an effect to alter the sound produced (the one here: https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/palm-muting-bg-1203), and there’s 2) muting to reduce noise (this one: https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/muting-strings-deliberately-b2-804). Confusingly enough, they are both called “muting”.
The “fretting hand muting” you speak of is for #2. The “palm muting for power chords” is #1. There’s also “palm muting the lower (pitch) strings,” which is #2, and is explained in the link above.
Hope that clears up the confusion!
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Hi Barny
Thanks for the reply. I’m thinking of a third scenario where I want to mute a chord, so most or all strings, between strums. Either to avoid consecutive strums becoming a sonic mush of noise as they all ring out or as an effect to have a ‘thump’ on the off beat or other non-accented note.
It feels natural to relax the fretting/left hand to do this but I don’t recollect Justin talking about that in either of the lessons you’ve suggested?
Cheers
Steve
Hi Steve,
You can use either hand to fully stop strings. There are lessons where Justin recommends using both to get a very fast, very complete, stop on staccato rhythms.
I tend toward palm muting myself. It is a lot faster for me than trying to lay down fretting fingers. I control the strength by moving my palm onto and off the bridge by whatever amount sounds right.
I do have at least one instance where I know I use fretting had for muting. That instance is where I need to mute ringing on strings 1-4 and need to play string 6. I lay finger 2 across strings 1-5 and can easily let string 6 (which is lightly palm muted) ring like I want it to.
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I may be completely off track here, but it seems to me that palm muting can’t be used when finger picking. The only way I can see to stop strings continuing to ring out is by muting them with the fretting hand by relaxing the pressure on the strings. Or if you’ve accidentally bumped an open string, by touching the string to mute it.
Any advice, other than “don’t be sloppy”. 