How to Mute Strings on Guitar: Stop Unwanted Noise With Both Hands

To mute strings on guitar, use both hands. The fretting hand lightly touches strings you are not playing (with fingertips, the underside of the fingers and the thumb), and the picking hand rests its palm on the strings to stop them ringing or to shorten notes on purpose. Good muting is what makes playing sound clean, especially on electric guitar with distortion.

Two kinds of muting

• Muting for cleanliness: stopping strings you did not mean to play from ringing. Mostly invisible, but it separates tidy playing from messy playing.
• Muting as a sound: palm mutes, muted strums and chucks, used deliberately as part of the rhythm.

Fretting-hand muting

1. Fingertip lean: when you fret a note, let the very tip of the finger lean slightly against the next thicker string. It stays silent if you pick it by accident.
2. Finger pad underneath: let the soft underside of the fretting finger rest on the thinner strings below the note. This is how lead players keep the high strings quiet.
3. Spare fingers: lay an unused finger flat and loose across the strings behind the note. It touches the strings without pressing them to the frets.
4. Thumb over the top: on electric guitar and some acoustic chords, the thumb can wrap around the neck and touch the low E string to keep it quiet (for example, on a D chord or a C chord played without the low string).
5. Release to stop: lift a fretting finger slightly off the fret without taking it off the string. The note stops instantly. This gives you short, staccato chords.

Picking-hand muting

Palm muting

1. Rest the fleshy outer edge of your picking hand on the strings right where they cross the bridge saddle.
2. Pick the string. The note should still have pitch, but sound short and chunky.
3. Move the palm toward the neck for a tighter, deader sound, or toward the bridge for a more open sound. Too far forward and the notes lose pitch completely.

Palm-muted eighth notes on a power chord are the engine of countless rock, punk and metal songs. In tab, palm muting is marked "P.M." with a dashed line over the notes.

Resting on unused strings

When you play on the high strings, let the side of the picking hand rest on the low strings to stop them vibrating in sympathy. Lead players slide the hand across the strings as they move, so the palm always covers the strings below the one being played and the fretting hand covers those above.

Muted strums and the chuck

A muted strum adds a percussive "chk" sound, like a snare drum, to strumming:

• Fretting-hand chuck: while holding a chord, relax the fingers so they stay on the strings but stop pressing them. Strum: you get a dead click.
• Picking-hand chuck: as the strumming hand comes down, let the palm or side of the hand land on the strings at the same moment. Common in acoustic pop and reggae-style playing.

Try it on a simple pattern: down, chuck, down-up, chuck-up, on beats 1, 2, 3 and 4. The chuck lands on beats 2 and 4, where the snare drum would be. See strumming patterns for beginners for more.

Exercises

1. One-string silence test: play a slow scale on the G string with distortion or heavy strumming. Any other string that rings means a muting hole. Find which hand should cover it.
2. Staccato chords: strum a chord on beat 1, release the pressure so it stops on beat 2, strum on 3, stop on 4.
3. Palm-mute switch: four palm-muted eighth notes on a low E power chord, then four open, ringing ones. Switch cleanly at the bar line.

Muting improves fastest with a steady beat. Use our free metronome and start slowly. For more rhythm skills, see how to strum a guitar.

Frequently asked questions