RH muting question for any 5 stringers

[brick]

I'm really trying to getting my RH muting sorted out at the mo, I never had any probs with muting on 4 string but have shifted to 5 string and the low B string is causing me grief as it resonates in sympathy when I move up to the D and G strings. So far the easiest way I have found to combat this is to barre the three lowest strings with the side of my thumb but this feels pretty unnatural, just wondering what other folk do with regards to RH muting + any advice or tips would be much appreciated

[BottomEndian]

[quote name='brick' post='957501' date='Sep 15 2010, 06:23 PM']barre the three lowest strings with the side of my thumb[/quote]
So the side of your thumb's just resting on the lower strings? Sounds like "floating thumb" technique, and it's what I do.

[mcgraham]

+1 - sounds like floating thumb. It certainly can feel unnatural at first as there's not a definite 'anchor' compared to anchoring your thumb on a lower string or pickup. Nevertheless, I'd advise sticking with it as it is an incredibly efficient muting technique - no effort required once you get used to it as it just slides up and down against the strings. It also means you don't need to expend effort moving between strings, unlike the anchoring technique which requires you to 'unanchor', move, then 'anchor' again.

Gary Willis vids on youtube are a good bet for an illustration. Also, try searching for 'floating thumb' in the BC technique section.

Mark

[BottomEndian]

The other beauty of floating thumb is that it allows you to keep the same RH shape as you move across the strings. You don't tilt or stretch for the upper strings; you just move the whole hand across. This lets you keep a consistent feel across all the strings.

[51m0n]

+1 for 'floating' thumb

[brick]

yep sounds like floating thumb is the way forward, cheers guys

[Kraken]

I may be slightly odd in this, but to stop other strings ringing out in sympathy I tend to use my left hand to mute the strings I'm not playing on my 5's.

but I don't play all songs with my fingers.

that said if you are a fingers player this 'Floating Thumb Technique' (sounds like a secret Kung Fu strike ) is a pretty good one to get into anyway I find that (if it is what I think it is) it helps with consistency in my plucking hand.

[mcgraham]

Not odd at all! I use my right thumb to mute lower strings, and left hand to mute all higher strings (relative to the one I'm playing)

I used to mute all strings (higher or lower) with my left hand, but this becomes extremely difficult to manage when navigating complex riffs at speed and/or with lots of string changes and string skipping. You can learn to navigate these solely with left hand muting, but given the choice of that or an easy muting system that just does it's job, I'll pick the easy one thanks!

Mark

[Fat Rich]

I play the B string pretty sparingly so my thumb is usually sitting on the E muting the B and the E. When I'm playing a lot on the D, G and C strings I hop my thumb to the A string, if I'm just playing a couple of notes up there I'll keep my thumb on the E and lay my little finger on the A string. I'm going to work on the floating thumb though because that looks the most efficient way.

I've been learning slap style and fretting hand muting has become very important so I'm starting to play flatter on the fingerboard generally, but on faster passages that doesn't always work.

[TKenrick]

Just to offer a different option....


Personally I use anchoring - I tried using floating thumb for a while after going to a clinic with Todd Johnson (who used to study with Gary Willis) but found that it didn't really work for me and that I preferred the sound that I get when anchoring. When I'm playing a 5, my thumb never anchors anything above the E string, and I use my right hand ring finger to help with muting. It's harder to explain without pictures, but here goes:

[b]String [center]Anchor point[/b][/center]
[left]B[/left] [center]Pickup[/center]
[left]E [/left] [center] Pickup[/center]
[left]A [/left] [center] B string [/center]
[left]D [/left] [center] E string (B string also covered by side of thumb)[/center]
[left]G [/left] [center] E string (Thumb also mutes B string, Ring finger mutes D string)[/center]


Having just written that I realise that it sounds odd and unnecessarily complicated when compared with floating thumb, but it works for me!

FWIW, I teach both anchoring and floating thumb and let the student decide what feels most natural. Just because it doesn't suit me doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile technique.

[velvetkevorkian]

Another vote for floating thumb here, especially if you're ever considering instruments with more than 5 strings.

[Doddy]

I sometimes catch myself using the floating thumb technique,but it's pretty rare that I do. Usually I have my thumb
anchored somewhere,often on the B and E strings. If I'm playing on the upper strings on either a 5 or 6,I've noticed
that I tend to anchor my thumb on the A string while my ring finger mutes the E and my little finger mutes the B-very
similar to the way that John Patitucci does it.
I've never spent much,if any,time trying to do any of this.It's usually born out of necessity and creeps in to my playing
over time. I did try to practise the floating thumb,but it was uncomfortable and felt like my hand had no stability,yet I
have done it on gigs without thinking about it.

[steve]

[quote name='mcgraham' post='958310' date='Sep 16 2010, 01:49 PM']Not odd at all! I use my right thumb to mute lower strings, and left hand to mute all higher strings (relative to the one I'm playing)[/quote]

+1

[Truckstop]

I use both techniques.
If i'm soloing, I pretty much exclusively use ADGC, so I actually rest my whole hand on BE keeping my fingers and thumb free for the other strings. I also notice, that if I'm sitting and playing, I tend to use floating thumb more, but when I'm standing, I tend to anchor more.
So, basically.....depends on what i'm playing.
Ooh, ooh, if I'm tapping I use my R wrist to mute.

Truckstop