From heavy chunk to popping percussive single notes, the palm mute should be part of your basic guitar technique vocabulary. It is called a palm mute, but palm muffle is probably a more descriptive name for this technique. Muting implies that you are not going to hear the notes, but this is far from the case.

Palm muting chords

Here is the "chunk" technique. Especially when palm muting chords with distortion, you will get a heavy percussive sound. It is a staple in heavy metal, but this technique is used in all styles of music.

Very lightly touch the side of your right hand at the edge of the bridge. If you move your hand too far back behind the bridge, you will not hear the muffled sound. If you move your hand too far forward away from the bridge, you will completely mute the strings and hear a click. I call this a "Palm Kill".

Watch this video of me moving my right hand to the left and right while palm muting. You will hear the point when the sound is more of a click, and the point where there is no mute at all.

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Page 2, Palm muting single notes