palm muting
Deadening tone with hand
Palm muting is a guitar technique where the side of the picking hand rests lightly against the strings near the bridge, producing a dampened, chunky sound.
Essential to heavy metal rhythm playing, it creates the percussive chug-chug-chug that drives aggressive riffs.
The technique appears across genres—country, punk, funk—wherever guitarists want notes clipped short rather than ringing out.
- chugDrink in gulps
- riffRepeated musical phrase
- power chordsRoot-fifth guitar voicings
- stopCease all motion
- rhythm guitarChordal strumming for support
tight · bridge · thrash metal · chunky · percussive · dampening · string · heavy metal · crunch · gallop · damp · distortion · staccato · fret · attack · metal · heavy · guitar
- drummingsnare drum, drum roll, drumroll, beat, drumsticks
- guitar basicsstrumming, chord progressions, power chords, barre chords, downstroke
- guitar techniquesshredding, fingerpicking, bends, arpeggios, hammer-on
- playing techniquespicking, arpeggiated, fingerpicking, spiccato, block chords
- bass techniqueswalking bass, slap bass, pizzicato, arco, fingerstyle
- Groove MetalPantera, Lamb of God
palm mutingopen strings
Notes without finger pressure
unmuted · sustain · ringing out · ringing tone · legato
mute, palm, muting, muteness, unmute, unmuted, mutedness, unmuting