In the previous blog post, we covered the role of the right hand (picking hand) in rhythm guitar. Now we’ll explore the role of the left hand (fretting hand) in muting techniques. What this basically does is add a percussive element to your rhythm playing, breaking away from a sort of uninspired sound that is only melodic and harmonic.

Practise muting using your right handTo illustrate this, we will use the barre chord version of the G with finger positions as outlined below.

G Major: Index finger on the 3rd fret (all strings), middle finger on the 4th fret (3rd string), ring finger on the 5th fret (5th string), and the little finger on the 5th fret (4th string).

Since this is a barre chord, you can mute the chord simply by releasing the pressure on the strings. This gives you a lot of versatility to play long sustaining chords or short muted chords. You can draw a contrast between no notes (fully muted) and fully articulated notes. You can also experiment with the order of the strokes – muted first and then open; or open first and then muted.

There are a few exercises that can help you improve your muting technique. We’ll use the same G Major Chord and the following 8th note pattern. Start with down and upstrokes and then proceed to muting either the first (downstroke) note, or the second (upstroke) note which would be harder to do.

Once you’re comfortable with this, you can try increasing the complexity by muting two notes instead of one, to improve the rhythm. Just by adding more muted notes to the 8th note pattern, you will be able to arrive at dynamic rhythms and fun new grooves.

Remember to do a lot of your practise using the metronome, as this is a very important time exercise for you to master. Keep practising and you will steadily improve your muting technique. In the next blog post, we look at arpeggios, which are basically chords played one note at a time. Continue reading to unlock this new guitar technique.