Fret-hand muting

Silencing strings with the fretting hand by relaxing pressure or resting unused fingers across them.

Fret-hand muting is what keeps high-gain and fingerstyle playing clean, because it stops unwanted strings ringing while the picking hand is busy elsewhere. There are two methods: releasing pressure just enough that the fretted note dies without a click, and laying spare fingers flat across the strings to absorb anything that would otherwise sound. It is also the technique behind percussive effects, since a fully muted string struck with the pick gives a note with pitch but no resonance.

Example: A distorted arpeggio that stays clean because the fretting fingers lie flat on the unused strings between notes relies on fret-hand muting.

Fret-hand muting

See also