Now that you have your power chord rhythms down you are ready to make them sound really cool. The technique of palm muting is very common, very easy to learn and effective.. It also sounds cool on the 12 Bar Blues that we learnt earlier in the Beginner Course. It is commonly used in many styles, but is most used in rock. In fact many big songs sound a bit odd without the palm mute on! A technique well worth learning...

 

The how to...

Use the outside of your picking hand to rest lightly right on the edge of the bridge, shown below. This will dampen the strings and make them sound thick and kinda dead. You need to experiment yourself to find out how far onto the strings you need to put your hand. It varies from song to song, you will usually be looking for a sound that is muffled but so you can still here the notes. Too much and you will just get a clicking sound and not hear the chord at all, to little and it just won't have any effect.

 

And it is written...

It is usually written with a P.M------| that shows how long to continue the mute for. Sometimes written above, sometimes below, sometimes in the middle!

 

Listen up

Listen to the example below where I slowly add the palm mute to an A5 powerchord and then lift it on and off. You can then hear all the types you can get, there are m,any degrees to use, from heavy to light, only your ear and experience will tell you which to use when!

Off and On

You should also practice playing sometimes with the palm mute off, like this rhythm from Basket Case by Green Day.

Should sound like:

Application

You should listen out for this effect when you are learnng songs and apply it where it sound cool. It sounds great with a lot of distortion and a loud amp. Check it out if you get the chance but don't upset anyone ;-).

Try adding palm mute to some of the tunes you have learnt already.

Once you have these down you can also try adding accents to them as shown in the next lesson:
BC-020 • Rock Accents.

Or you can check out my CD ROM which gives you the chance to use these techniques ;-)

 

Video Lesson (coming soon)

 

 

Justins own CD-ROM Download for learning Power Chords

To compliment these lessons I think you will like a product I made for the Charanga company which has a number of songs that I wrote and produced you can play along with. It teaches you all the rock rhythm techniques and rhythms learnt in these lessons and the songs progress from very easy to totally rockin'. It is downloadable and you can even record your own guitar and listen back to yourself playing along with the tracks! It is a great way to learn, great fun and by the end you will really be cooking! It really is cool, there are loads of pictures and as you look at the music a neck shows you where to put your fingers on the animated fingerboard. If you buy it - enter JustinSandercoe as a promotional code and you will get 33% discount too. Check it all out here: Music Coach Rock Powerchords

 

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