Chords for String muting exercises - How to play bass guitar lesson six

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[G] _ _ [F] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ [A#] _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
Hi there guys, this is Ben Jones from the Institute here as part of the Bass Expo for Music Radar.
We've had a little look at some exercises for warm-ups and also creating some interesting
lines as well using those.
The next thing I want to talk to you about is an issue that a lot of bass players have
and they don't address it very often and it really does come up in their playing later
on and if you can address it early when you're a beginner or if you've only been playing
for a short period of time, it will really help you as you develop into a player.
And that's the idea of muting.
So what is muting?
Well, muting is basically where you stop one string ringing underneath another.
If you hear this, it's a pretty horrible sound.
Now if I wanted to play, for example, an open G string [D] followed by an open D string, I don't
want to hear [G] that.
[D] I don't want to hear them ringing together.
Even though that actually sounds okay, that's not the idea.
So what we're going to look at is ways and it can come in two parts.
You can mute with your left and you can [E] mute with your right.
It's easier to mute with your left but we're going to discuss some techniques with the
right hand that will hopefully help you at home.
So we're going to take a very simple line.
We're going to play _ second fret on the D string [B] up to fourth fret [E] on the G string.
It's going to go, _ _ okay, just a real simple, almost like a nurse rhyme.
_ _ And we're going to move that up two frets [F#] to fourth and then the [C#] next note will be the
sixth above that.
So it's going to go.
_ [E] _ _ _ [F#] _
_ _ _ [E] Now what we don't want to hear is this.
_ _ _ _ [F#] _ _ _
Hopefully you guys can hear that at home.
Those two strings are ringing together.
[G] So let's address the left [E] hand muting first.
_ The great thing about playing a string instrument is that obviously as soon as you touch this
string, it's vibrating at the moment, you kill the sound completely.
And what we're going to do is we're going to focus on the ability to play a note, release
the pressure, i.e. by letting the finger off and then [G] you will not get a note anymore.
[E] So if I was just playing a simple sort of _ _ _ eighth note pattern, I can mute and stop the
note just by taking my finger off.
_ _ _ Obviously you don't want that dead note in there, but the principle is the same.
We get the note and then you lose it by releasing the pressure.
First note is first finger on the second fret of the D string.
[B] Then we're going to reach up for that fourth fret with probably [E] our little finger on the G string.
So we play that note, we then release the pressure, [B] _ _ play the next note, [E] release the
little finger this time and then play the first note again.
So you get, _ _ _ and hopefully there you can see the pressure actually in my hand changing
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
and then up and [F#] _ _ _ _
_ _ then back.
[E] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Okay, so that's [D] the left hand and that can obviously be put through any shape.
It doesn't really matter.
What we're [E] looking to do though is release the pressure off the fingers, just like that.
Now of course if you go, hopefully [E] you all heard [D] that, you get what's called a pull off,
which basically means I'm [D] actually getting that note, which is an open D.
We don't want that.
That will start to bleed into lines and it's not going [E] to help you.
So just taking it off just enough so the string stops moving is an effective way of muting.
Now let's talk about the right hand because right hand muting is very, very important.
_ Obviously we're just [D#] concerned with these two strings here, D and G.
The E and the A
for now in this exercise aren't going to be used.
So what I'm going to do, we hit the first finger, the second finger, this is still vibrating
even though it's, you can see that there.
And then when I play that next one with my second [B] finger, I [E] land on the D string and
because of that it stops this note from ringing out any longer.
So you get_
_ [B] But [E] this _ can't ring anymore because my finger has already landed on it.
_ _ [D#] _ _
_ [C#] _ [A] That way we [E] don't get this bleeding effect.
[Bm] So it's a really effective use of two hands to make a much cleaner sound and especially
if any of you are going to do any recording in the future, muting is a huge issue.
[Em] You don't want to have all this noise going on in the background when you're recording on things.
So it's a really important thing to do.
And just remember the two ideas [E] we've used.
Pressure being taken off the strings with your fretting hand or your left [G] or depending
if you're left or right handed.
[A] And then pulling through to land on the string below in your plucking hand.
And those two should give you a much cleaner tone that will help you in any style of music
you want to play. _
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