Can’t figure this out at all. I also feel like I don’t have a place to rest my hand on.
So it really depends on what type of muting you are referring to. There is the “I do not want the strings I’m not hitting to ring out at all, even sympathetically” and there is the “musical mute” where you are lightly muting for tonal reasons and possibly even secondarily for the first reason as well - the two do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Most will use a double mute strategy, where the fretting hand will be muting strings higher than those fretted, and the palm of the picking hand will mute those lower.
Typically when referring to muting you will be anchoring the picking hand somewhere that contacts the strings, but the portion of the hand used to mute may be different depending on what feels the most comfortable, and incidentally can affect the escape that is adopted. Again two things that are not exactly mutually exclusive.
If you feel comfortable doing so, you can always upload a vid of what you are having trouble with for some guidance. You may get varying opinions on this subject, but laying out exactly what you are trying to do, and what n which context can be beneficial.
1 Like
I’m completely sorry, I was half asleep when I wrote it, spent the night studying, lol. I meant UWPS.
I was wondering if that’s what you meant. Check out the Andy Wood interviews. I seem to remember right after the hour mark in both (pretty earie) Troy talks with Andy about how he mutes. It’s not where you’d think it is. More around here:
And it’s variable depending on which strings he’s playing.
It’s also worth noting you don’t really need much of an upslant with the pick, because the motion of the wrist can make that “downstrokes go away from the body” pretty easily even if the pick slant is neutral. That should give you a little bit more bridge contact to play with.
Just about every wrist DSX player Troy labels as “lightly supinated” too. Which really just means that the pinky side of the palm is not air-gapping. Once you’re in that territory you’re probably pronated.
2 Likes
Joe, you just saved me hours of breaking my head trying to figure out this. Thank you so much, it worked.
1 Like