Another important technique I would like to talk about is muting. This is where we control all of the unwanted string noise. And we can do this with both the fretting hand and the picking hand. If we talk about the fretting hand, let us say I have this slide on the middle finger, I can just lightly press the strings with my first finger behind the slide in order to control some of that unwanted string noise, or if I have the slide on my third finger. I can use the middle finger or even the middle finger and the first finger to stop some of that unwanted noise.
With the picking hand I can just lightly rest the heel against the strings somewhere between the pick up and the bridge, and this way I can control how loud the string is, the dynamics of the string and I can also stop some of that unwanted string noise. So here is the couple of examples to practice our muting with, here is the first one.
So all I am going to do here is play a C major triad, 5th fret of the D, G and the B strings. That makes the C major triad with the root C being in the middle here on the 5th fret of the G string. So because I am just kind to barre on the 5th fret, I will call out the string names to give you the sequence of the lick. So we are going to start off on the 3rd string which is the G string, 4th string which is the D string, 3rd string, 2nd string of the B string, 3rd string, 4th string. Okay so those six notes. And we will do that three times, and the final note will be C on the 5th fret of the G string.
Now the idea here is we just want to hear those notes that we are playing. We do not want to sustain the notes, so they run in to each other, we want to hear just the notes we are playing.
Now if I do not concentrate on the muting, I just let all the notes go, you may end up with something like this. So I mute by placing my fingers behind the slide with the left hand, and I lightly touched the strings with the heel of my right hand. Okay here is a slightly longer example.
You may have heard something like that before. So once again I am going to use the C major triad, 5th fret I will call out the string numbers. So we are going to start of 4, 3, 2, 2, 3, repeat that. 4, 3, 2, 2, 4, 3, 2, 3.
Moving on, 4, 3, 2, 2, 3 just like in the beginning, repeat that, and the ending 4, 3, 2, 2, 4, 4, 3.
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