sweep pick basics, muting

[vinay]

Recently picked up the guitar a bit more again. Actually it was when I got my second kid that I couldn’t find time to leave home for mtb and bmx riding so I started guitar again. But as kids grew up I started riding more again hence played less guitar. But yeah, I decided to dedicate a little bit of time to playing guitar again. Not to become great, but just because I do enjoy the process of working on something new.

So I started small and picked up sweep pick basics from Dan Mumm. Now he does show how to mute the strings but also points out not to worry about it too much at this stage. But as I like to play with distortion, I do intend to make playing cleanly a priority. I do already mute the higher strings with the fretting hand and the lower strings with the palm, but I usually also use the finger that hold the pick to mute the strings adjacent to the strings I’m picking. So the when I pick the third string the thumb mutes the fourth and the index finger mutes the second. So I usually use a combination of muting techniques hoping that at least one of them is effective at avoiding unwanted noise ;). Now, Dan doesn’t mention using the fingers that hold the pick and I’m not sure whether it should unlearn it, whether it would hold me back. My arpeggio is really slow now (I’m not even trying to go fast at this stage) but I can imagine it could possibly hold me back when I’m trying to speed up. Does anyone know whether this is true?

I’m also trying to mute with the palm alone (and fretting fingers) but it is actually quite hard to synchronize. To not mute the string before it is being picked but do mute it when the next string is being picked. Plus of course the rubbing of the palm over these strings does cause some slight noise too. Releasing the fretting fingers slightly (dampening the strings) just before and after they’re being picked does work, but in some positions obviously also gives me natural harmonics.

So yeah, I can probably make this work with the directions given in the course. Was just curious whether I should unlearn to mute with the fingers holding my pick, at least for this technique.

[Igglepud]

When I worked on sweeps, I remember something about muting with the picking hand. You hit the string, and your hand should naturally move up and mute as you reach the next string. Motley made a lot more progress than I did in the sweeping arena, maybe he can chime in.

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[vinay]

Yeah, thanks for your advice. That is the technique Dan recommends in his course and which I am practicing as well. It works well, though the sliding of my palm over the strings does cause some noise too. Not much, but nowhere near as silent as Dan. Sorry for being long winded in my initial post. The thing is, in addition to using the palm and fretting finger for muting (as recommended by Dan) I also tend to use the finger that hold the pick for muting. I feel it usually is effective when playing on these higher strings and it is also easier to coordinate than having the palm just in the right spot to mute the correct string (and not the one being played). My main question was, is this fine or should I avoid using these “pick holding fingers” for muting for this particular course?

[Igglepud]

Since sweeps are a motion of the hand, I see no reason not to use the fingers as you are. It shouldn’t slow you down any. Again, other opinions may be better.

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[superblonde]

vinay wrote:

My main question was, is this fine or should I avoid using these “pick holding fingers” for muting for this particular course?

muting… not with pick hand fingers but with..

fret touch mechanics

sweep picking mechanics

Dan’s most recent song (his youtube channel is awesome these days) doesnt focus on sweep but you can see..

Dan Mumm – Streetlight Maniac – (Official Music Video) 2018

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

Attachments:

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   danmumm-ftm.jpg
   

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   danmumm-spm.jpg
   

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   danmumm-streetlight.jpg
   

[vinay]

Thanks SB. Yeah this is one solution but it doesn’t really relate to my practice. That is, it doesn’t require anything for me to learn. When I want to use open strings in my playing too, I wouldn’t be able to use these bands anyway so I could just as well learn to do without. Again, I can already mute as said in the course, just wondering whether I should avoid using my other muting technique too. As Igglepud mentioned, I should probably not worry too much about this. Apparently it is not going to become a crutch. I also realized that playing over the neck pickup removes most of the noises caused by my palm sliding over these strings. I pretty much exclusively play over the bridge pickup so I just forgot about the other pickup ;).

[superblonde]

Check this older thread too https://guitarlessonforum.com/guitar-forums/topic/sweep-picking-technique

I cant do the technique but pretty sure you dont want to use the pick hand fingers to mute strings as normally done, just based on watching the MAB and Dan Mumm videos. Use only fret hand finger muting and palm muting (and muting tool on the neck of some type).

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[vinay]

Your link appears to be broken but yeah, I’ll try to avoid using those extra fingers for muting then. It is kind of tempting to use them whenever I hear unwanted strings ringing, but it is better to unlearn it now (at least for this course) rather than becoming stuck later on. Cheers!

[superblonde]

umm sorry yeah that thread is inside the old subforum which I forgot isnt visible.. anyways here is one of the most important replies from dan mumm himself: “you won’t ever mute a string until after the note has played – if that makes sense.”

Anonymous wrote:

Hi Falcon,

I’m glad you’re enjoying Sweep Pick Mechanics! It seems we have a little bit of a confusion on terminology here. When I refer to playing through sweep patterns without palm muting, I’m referring to the technique of muting strings as they are being played. You will absolutely find it necessary to mute strings immediately after they are being played when sweep picking. In the program, I’m talking about a bad habit that a lot of guitarists get into where they use palm muting as a crutch and essentially fake the sweep technique by raking instead. I’ll point out that a lot of these guitarist terms can cause confusion as they aren’t always mutually exclusive – for example, rake picking is a type of sweep picking but “sweep picking” does not necessarily denote rake picking. For the sake of Sweep Pick Mechanics, which focuses on non-rake/non-palm muted sweep patterns, you will want to mute the strings after they are being played with the broad side of your palm (as MotleyCrue81 pointed out) but you won’t ever mute a string until after the note has played – if that makes sense.

In regards to your question about playing style, note clarity and precision are obtained through a variety of micro movements of the hands that develop with practice over time. You won’t have to consciously work on all of these techniques individually. However, the best way to ensure their development is to always focus on achieving clarity and precision. When working with the metronome with any given technique, use a finger that isn’t being used to lightly muffle unplayed strings. Eventually, you’ll start doing this subconsciously and both the left and right hands will get involved. Anyway, to jump back real quick, I would personally recommend setting specific goals for yourself that completely ignore any natural predisposition or leaning. Someone’s “natural approach” to playing is simply the negative image of their limitations. Finding those limitations and pushing them further out is the best way to go in my book.

I hope that helps and enjoy the remainder of the program! Let me know if you have any other questions.

Dan

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[vinay]

Thanks for the quote. Obviously indeed as I mentioned in my initial post, care should be taken to release the string to be played just in time and mute it just and mute it just before the next string is being played. Maybe the thing that’s holding me back now is that I’m pushing the body of my guitar down with my lower arm to keep the neck up. Maybe it is me coming from playing classical guitar to want to have the neck up like that. And maybe it is just also because the guitar was intentionally built neck heavy. Because when it is balanced already and you clip on a wireless transmitter (and battery that goes with it) the neck raises and you have nothing to balance that out. So yeah it may be time to sew a pouch on my strap (near the bridge-end of it) and stuff it with 1kg of whatever is convenient and legal. I once thought I should just put my first overdrive pedal there so that the short patch cable going in there has less chance to pick up noise before it is being overdriven. Not sure if it really makes sense though. Either way, balancing the guitar has become a bit more urgent then.

Funny enough my actual question still remains somewhat unanswered. In the quote he actually recommends to use the fingers that aren’t being used for playing, for muting the strings not being played. I’ll take that is for other techniques then, other than arpeggios.

[vinay]

Alright, to not litter the forum with new topics let’s drag this old one out again. Even though I chose to no leave sweep picking for now as my main interest is in rhythm playing, I still find myself focusing loads on muting noise. Especially when riffing on the low strings, there is always some open high string that starts singing. Even on MRE, ex1 where I fret the 3rd and 4th bar with the thump so that I can use all other fingers for muting the fifth and higher strings (I play the riff on 6th and 7th string), I can occasionally still hear a high string. Maybe not even open string ringing, but just a harmonic or the violin sound from the fingers sliding. It is more noticeable when playing over the headphones (through a Vox AmPlug Metal) than amplified (MXR Fullbore Metal distortion into a Mooer Baby Bomb pedal power amp into a Vox 108 cab). Not sure why this is different, but it is. The MXR distortion has a noise gate built in, but obviously that only works when the guitar sound is below threshold. Once I’m playing it is all open. The guitar is a Jackson JS22-7. I hung a camera pouch stuffed with about 1kg of leftover bolts and screws onto it to balance the guitar, so that frees up the fretting hand from pushing the body down.

So yeah, that got me wondering whether these GruvGear fretwraps are the way to go. They probably help with muting but is it cheating in that lets me get away with sloppy playing? On one hand it would be nice to focus more on the actual exercise than on muting but on the other hand I don’t want to develop a (lack of) technique that bites me in the tail further down the line. I see many great guitar players actually use these wraps. Even if it is just around the headstock, which seems to help too. One guitar player actually showed me that for recording, she’s taping the strings she doesn’t play to make sure they’re dead silent. So yeah, I’m curious to hear what your thoughts are before I’d get one of these. (A wrap that is, not a roll of tape.)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by vinay. Reason: Wanted to mention the option of wrapping it around the headstock

[superblonde]

Bumblefoot uses a muter, so does MAB, live on stage and in the studio. It is definitely not cheating when needing to perform or record. I heard a similar story about recording, a local recording engineer was saying they use a small strip of felt, and wad it up under the bridge at the unused strings. These cases are independent of specific practice. I would chunk the practice. Do 20 min – 1 hr practice at slow tempo (40-60 BPM) every day for 2 months without a muter while specifically listening for noise and trying to eliminate it with various hand movements. Then the rest of the time, practice or play with a muter on, to be able to play songs or other exercises etc. I noticed subtle technique improvements on my muting when I did this slow practice, things I couldn’t do before, yet afterwards, it was just like Doug and Dan Mumm explain, it just happens automatically, I guess by the subconscious and because of listening. This was for arpeggios and such and finger muting with right hand. I am still terrible at fast palm muting chugga rhythm muting with the right hand. I can’t seem to get my right hand in the correct angle or position to mute all strings while maintaining the fast chugga chugga. Usually one of the middle strings will ring like the G, right where there is a crease in my palm, so the high E is muted fine with the side of the palm but the G is able to move freely. It is pretty frustrating. Its also a high gain thing. Its not because I’m hitting the string accidentally, it seems to occur because of sympathetic resonance. Its also a guitar – anatomy thing since each guitar will have its own shape at the bridge and everybody has their own anatomy differences so really it just comes down to listening carefully in slow practice, trying different tiny hand movements until the sound is gone while practicing slowly, then ramping up the speed from there. It is probably also related to the strings I’m using. Maybe much thicker strings or different string material would have different sympathetic resonance and so maintaining the high gain wouldn’t cause the same effect. Maybe its also because of my EMG pickups which are already very hot and also compress. Is it cheating to change guitars or guitar electronics? Not for performance or recording, because guitarists change to specific guitars for specific songs all the time, for various reasons of playability and tone. That’s my perspective right now. It is probably because these tempos I’m attempting to play rhythm at, are beyond my actual speed ability of my right hand at this time, so I should accept that there will be noise, until my right hand gets faster (above 140 BPM metal gallop is where I start to break down). I can play 170 BPM gallop (barely) but it will be sloppy. So to fix that I would need to find the tempo where the technique starts to break down and then I would take that BPM and practice only at 50% – 60% of that speed (I literally put the BPM in a calculator and dont do the isolated drills faster than 60%, lets say the song is 165 BPM but I find the technique starts to break down at 100 BPM, then I only practice it at 50 BPM – 60 BPM, for 20-40 minutes “every day for months” and I expect to see some steady improvement after 2-3 weeks of this). Long ago I noticed that in my practice or playing, trying to refine my technique closer to the actual tempo (like practicing at 140 BPM for a 165 BPM song) just does not work for me, progress does not really happen well, which is why I find that slower point of breakdown and then only practice much slower than that.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[vinay]

Thanks for the elaborate response :)! Yeah I can definitely find myself doing a lot of muting so that’s good but that’s still easiest to do when playing single notes. I think when I play chords it is a bigger motion of the right hand so the palm rubs more strings. Plus of course if you’ve got a six string guitar, I’ve got one string more to mess with ;). Gear matters too indeed as I’m not sure why but the Vox AmPlug metal (guitar-jackplug headphone amp) is much noisier than the MXR distortion pedal. Both are quite high gain even though I leave the gain knob more or less at 12 o’clock.

Your suggestion to only bother with keeping the noise at bay for part of the session is a good one. As I found it was dominating my practice and I never got to play something a bit faster.

Not sure how much time I’m going to dedicate to it. I may be one of the rare few students here with young children. Add to that a job, lots of stuff to do for the house and urgent need to go play outside at least a couple of times a week to keep my energy levels in check and I’m already lacking sleep without playing the guitar. Motivation is by no means lacking and if I start playing it is hard to stop, which also implies that there is no sustainable way for me to do long practice sessions. So I recently decided the only way to keep at it is to have a clear plan, practice for half an hour a day at most and stop there. It may not make me a guitar wizard but at least I’m getting somewhere. Better than have three hours of fun and then play catch-up for the rest of the week!

So yeah, thanks for the advice. I’ll get one of these wraps and use it over the headstock. That is said to help already. Then for the other half of the session I’ll shift it over the neck so that I can work on other areas. Curious to see how this works out.

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