How to Using Palm Muting Techniques in Rock Guitar

Palm muting has long been a favorite technique among heavy metal and rock guitarists. It has the effect of giving the guitar a chunky, percussive sound without affecting the guitar tone. "Enter Sandman" by Metallica makes extensive use of palm muting to give the song its doom laden sound. If you play guitar, follow these instructions to make palm muting part of your technique.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Plug your guitar into an amplifier. If you use distortion, plug the pedal into the guitar and amp. Turn on the amp, wait for the amp to be properly warmed up and then turn on the distortion pedal.

2. Rest the palm of your picking hand gently against the strings near the edge of the guitar's bridge. If you move your hand too far forward, it deadens the string and you lose the clean tone.

3. Match your technique to the song you're playing. For songs with medium tempos--Deep Purple's "Smoke On the Water" is a classic example--alternate picking does just fine. On the other hand, pile driving rockers like Deep Purple's "Highway Star" or Led Zep's "Whole Lotta Love" require extensive downward strumming.

4. Master the proper sound through regular practice. Start off with a slower song and then work your way up to faster pieces or use the pinkie on your picking hand until you're ready to graduate to the full palm method.

Tips & Warnings

• Ryan Spencer provides a good example of proper strumming technique and chord chart for the Black Sabbath classic "Paranoid" at Guitar Noise. There is also a good video on palm muting at Cyberfret.

Resources

• Read Ryan Spencer's article on palm muting.
• See the video on palm muting at Cyberfret.