Channel: New Secret Guitar Teacher

Category: Music

Tags: learn guitarpinch harmonicsplay guitarmuting techniquesecret guitar teacherpalm mutinglead guitarsupersitionmutingnick minnionstevie wonderguitar mutingsecretguitarteacher

Description: Using the main riff from Superstition by Stevie Wonder as an example, Nick explains how to master the palm muting and pinch harmonics techniques to elevate your guitar playing. This is the fifth lesson in the art of muting series, catch up here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1NLL4hFt-QerfJXjwjBkZ5XxFc7D03HN Find the tab and many more lessons at secretguitarteacher.com Abridged Script In the last lesson in this mini-series, we took Stevie Wonder’s clavinet riff from the song Superstition and began to shape the sound using fretting hand muting techniques to inject something of that funky feel into this classic riff. So, we showed how, without any muting technique, it sounds like this… but by adding staccato muting and then percussive muting we begin to give the rhythm a bit more definition. Now in this lesson we are going to tweak the actual tonal quality of the sound by using a couple of picking hand muting techniques. The first of these is called palm muting. As the name suggests, we are using the palm of the hand to damp down the vibrations of the strings just this side of the bridge notice that the results of applying this technique range from zero – no effect at all if the palm is applied the other side of the bridge – to slight… as the hand just begins to encroach on the vibrating part of the string this side of the bridge… then the muting quickly gets more pronounced as we move the palm further onto the strings until, we have effectively minimised the tone and the guitar could be said to have become a purely percussive instrument. One of the points about palm muting that is often not fully appreciated is that it can enable you to work with a much higher level of energy than you might attempt when playing without muting. This energy might come simply from hitting the strings harder. If I hit that hard without muting it sounds pretty rough, but, by muting I can control the extra energy and keep the rhythm nicely defined. Likewise, I might use higher sustain settings on my amp which would sound over the top if played straight but can really be harnessed using palm muting technique. To apply the final touch to our funky Stevie Wonder riff I am going to add some pinch harmonics. This technique involves using the flesh on the side of the thumb to contact the string fractionally after the pick has hit it. In effect this plays a harmonic which you can hear as a higher pitched sound that varies depending on how far up the string you are touching it Notice that, in this case we are only using the thumb for this as we play this riff with all down strokes... But, generally speaking you can also use the fingertip in the same way when playing up strokes. Back to our Superstition riff, let’s just review all four layers of muting technique that we have now added, and listen to how each adds to the effect we are after. Starting with a totally straight sound – no muting technique at all, add in staccato technique on my fretting hand then percussive muting. I can then get a nice continuous rhythmic movement going with my picking hand now I bring the palm of my picking hand onto the strings slightly, to add the palm muting sound I can then crank up the power from the amp or fx if I want to Then finally I add in the pinch harmonics to get that particular funky sound going. So, I hope that gives you some idea of the scope of these different muting techniques and encourages you to experiment with them yourself. In the next few lessons in this series we’ll address the subject of strumming, in general, and of strumming patterns in particular. We’ll take a look at how you should view these subjects at every level of development from complete beginner up to advanced pro player. Look forward to seeing you then!