How to Improve Your Guitar Strumming with Mutes Video Lecture - The Ultimate

I'm happy to report that the YouTube
channel has become big enough to pay for
my monthly Starbucks bill so having
achieved my life goals you may think I
may be too big time to keep doing entire
lessons but no there's more knowledge to
be shared and today we're going to talk
about how to add muting to your
strumming to make things more
interesting and percussive so first
things first let's talk about what
muting really is now I've done another
video on palm muting and this is going
to be different because all it is is
your left hand or your fretting hand if
your lefty the fretting hand is
controlling everything that you hear and
do not hear is controlling the sustain
right so let's just take a like a F
major voice cord right here right so
here it is sustained now I can control
the mute of it just by taking the
pressure off of my fretting hand right
so instead of holding down I just let go
sustain not sustained right so it seems
kind of easy enough but actually I think
when you're first starting out it can be
a little bit trickier to get both of
your hands to work in tandem with each
other like for instance if you're
letting go of the pressure like want
like one thing that beginners have is
they kind of have like a death grip on
every single chord that they do so when
they let go they have to kind of like
let off and reform so it really does
take a little bit of focus to be able to
let go of the pressure of the chord
actually hold the strings down the way I
like to think about it is think about
your fretting hand is like holding a
button right I just like pushing a
button whenever you do it so if you're
picking an or if you're playing with
your thumb or your fingers or whatever
if this is going steady and just down
and up right I'm not changing the
dynamic this is just going down and up I
can control when I hear the chord by
just pushing the chord down like a
button all right so if we have like a
four beat bar like 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 hand
I'm just going to sustain the 1 and the
end of 1 so 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1
and you and 3m4 okay so if you've got
that down one question you might have is
this right here is in a full bar chord
Barre chords are probably the easiest
things to mute because everything is
already in place so you just let off the
bar chord and you get a full mute right
now open chords can be a little bit
tricky or like say let's take a let's
take a more open chord like a G major
chord for example right so to mute this
you might try doing the same thing where
you just let the pressure off and sounds
like this because what's happening is
the open strings aren't being muted so
we have to figure out a way that we can
mute those open strings and there's a
couple different ideas I have for you so
one thing that the first way that I
always try doing it was again thinking
of my right hand is just going straight
down and up not changing the dynamic or
the strings I'm aiming for or anything
what I'm doing is I'm gonna lie down
with my fingers right so instead of
coming off or trying to like bar them I
think another thing people might do to
start is like play chord and then just
buy the whole thing like that works but
it's kind of like a really intricate
dance you have to do with your left and
right hand so a better way to do it is
just kind of like when you're ready to
mute it just lay your fingers down so
they're hitting what would be the open
strings right so if you can kind of see
when I'm sustained my hand looks one way
and then when I muted it it's just a
really slight kind of shift like you see
my wrists kinda move there to kind of
lay that chord down so even though I'm
still formed on a regular G major chord
I'm not hearing it any of the open
strings be sustained right now another
thing to do and I think the most
efficient way to do it is just shorten
the stroke of your strumming hand two
notes that you have fretted right so in
the g major Scates the the first two
strings the low E string in the a string
are fretted with your fingers right so
if you were to just take the pressure
off of these two
and then just shorten your stroke so
you're just hitting the E and the a
string I'm kind of getting the same
effect but in a different way where I
don't have to change my hand because
that can be a tricky thing too right so
really just kind of aim at where you're
going now another thing that you may
have already heard is sometimes when you
try to like hit a dead end off fretted
muted part you'll hear aah or like aah
and that's the harmonic thing and I'm
going to do a different video on
harmonics but every now and then just to
let you know is sometimes you blow
where's that sound coming from but what
you're doing is some of the the strings
harmonics are ringing out when you're
trying to like mute so you might get an
unwanted thing but eventually you'll be
able to control that kind of thing right
so again I think like let's do another
court rule like a a minor in a minor is
another really common one that's hard to
kind of mute
because there's so many open strings
there right so our options really we can
kind of lay the cord down and
concentrate on the stroke to just hit
the bottom four strings right now other
people will go so far as to bring their
thumb in to mute everything right
because if you don't want to selectively
hit just the bottom four strings you're
gonna have to do something about these
lower alright so you can bring your
thumb in another thing I see people do a
lot is they'll use their pinky is kind
of like a free-agent finger they can
kind of just lay down across the string
again I'm not a huge fan of that because
I kind of feel like laying your pinky to
replace the board is almost kind of like
just making a new chord in and of itself
I personally think the best most
efficient way to mute on your fretting
hand is just tighten the stroke up of
whatever you're doing it and just hit
those dead strengths right they'll be
way better for the accuracy of your
strumming hand over what strings you're
hitting and stuff like that right now
another thing I want to talk about is
how to incorporate some muting to get
different strumming styles right I think
a really important aspect of staying in
time is making sure that your strumming
hand is steady right if you don't have a
good counting thing and you don't have
to be consciously counting you don't
feel like one and two and three and four
and one and two and three and four I
think what you do need to do is have
some kind of system for keeping this
steady right even if you're not hitting
the strings all the time there's an
internal rhythm that is happening that's
being manifested anything you're
strumming hands and people to have their
foot some people tap their head there's
a lot of different ways I didn't come
out right
but a great way to practice that and
practice being able to selectively mute
things is by taking a chord and a
strumming pattern and then just
selectively adding things in and out so
for example let's take that same kind of
F major and I've made your 7th chord
whatever however you want to look at it
and we're going to do this we're going
to go one and two and three and four and
right so we have technically eight spots
two spots per cone
one-and two-and three-and four-and hands
are all going to be upstrokes the
numbers are all gonna be down strokes
and we're going to selectively change
these routers so the first we're going
to do is where it's just down op and
then the rest of them is going to be
meted so one and two and three and four
and one and two and three and four and
you don't even have to count it out loud
sometimes it helps one and one and two
and three and four and one and two and
three and four right so what we're going
to do is we're gonna start adding
different things so let's just add the
downbeat on the three so we have one two
and three and four and one and two and
three and four and one and two and once
you're able to do more and more of these
you're going to be able to have a better
ear for the strumming patterns that you
can hear a question I get asked a lot is
how do I pick out a strumming pattern
from a song and more often than not you
can always find it by doing this by
having just a down and up thing going on
for every beat and then just selectively
picking out the ones you want you don't
always have to have mutes you can just
skip like this let's let's add 1 & 2 & 3
& 4 in so we'll get the the first two
like 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4
so basically I'm kind of muting the
middle of her right if we didn't have
the Meuse and we just the time you'd be
a 1 & 2 & 3
right so if you don't have a counting
structure behind you you're really just
stabbing at moments in time and until
you have really really good rhythm like
internal timing it's hard to do that in
a repeatable way that you're not getting
out of time so doing an exercise like
this where you can just randomly pick
things like let's not even start on the
1 let's go let's move the 1 & 2 & 3 & 4
& 1 hand
and one and two and one and eventually
you can kind of get rid of that and just
start using your ears to kind of feel
out where you want the sustained parts
and where you want the muta parts
because again it's all a coordination
between your left in the right hand
eventually you start adding dynamics
right so like let's say I want to really
emphasize like the three ax one and two
and three and four and one and two and
three and four so I'm still muting the
three but I'm doing it in a more
aggressive way one and two so once you
can kind of get an ear for where you
want to put your dynamics where you want
to have sustained where you want to have
muted it all becomes a lot easier and
it's all because you have some kind of
internal timing rhythm that is always
steady right and then eventually it your
left and right hands become coordinated
to the point that you don't have to
think about it you don't have to count
it you can just feel it and then when
you hear something you can diagnose
what's happening and then execute
without even having to think about
whether it's on the one the end of to
the timing stuff like that you'll just
really have a good ear for it and your
hands will be more coordinated with each
other