How to Read Palm Muting in Guitar Tabs

You may have wondered how to get that "chug-chug" sound so commonly heard in heavy metal guitar riffs. Even if you know what a palm mute is, you might not know how to read it in tablature. It's not at all hard to learn.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Palm Muting Basics

1. Learn the method. Palm muting is a simple guitar technique that can provide a variety of tones. It's most often associated with metal and rock guitar, but it is used in almost all genres of music.

2. Focus on position. Palm muting is accomplished by resting the side of your palm closest to the pinkie near the bridge of the guitar while picking. It chokes the sound, creating a more percussive effect. With heavy overdrive, this effect is intensified.

3. Rest your palm closer to the bridge for a less choked effect that has more tone. Or bring the palm toward the neck just a bit for a harder percussive sound.

4. Experiment. The variety of tones produced by the palm mute are numerous, so test different positions to achieve different effects.

Reading Palm Mutes in Tab.

5. The symbol for a palm mute is "PM" placed above the staff of tablature: PME-------------------------B-------------------------G-------------------------D-------------------------A-------------------------E---0---------------------In this case, the single open E is struck while the flesh of the palm rests near the bridge.

6. When multiple notes in succession require palm muting, a line is added above the notes that are to be muted: PM------|E---------------------------------B---------------------------------G---------------------------------D---------------------------------A-----------------2----------------E---0-0-2-3-5-------------------In this example, all the notes until the fifth fret on the E string are palm muted. The fifth fret on E and the second fret on A are not.

7. When palm muting several sections with other notes in between: PM---| PM----|E----------------------------------------------B----------------------------------------------G----------------------------------------------D-----------------------------------0-2------A------------2-4-5-------------2-------------E---0-3-4-----------0-3-4------------------

Tips & Warnings

• Pay attention to which notes are palm muted and which aren't. Sometimes entire chords are palm muted to produce a thick percussive sound. Occasionally, people who write online tablature use a slighty altered form of the palm muting tab, with the symbol placed under the staff instead of above it.