How To damp strings while floating

[ginod]

I know that this Kind of Topic is already often discussed . Usually iam am a damp guy. I damp with my Palm the lower strings to avoid ringing Bass strings and noises. Now i have Tried to Play with floating Hand like a gypsy and i am really confused how this could work. Even if i Play only accoustic there are These extreme annoying Bass strings which resonating all the Time. If i damp there are only my Note and Nottingham Else. So how is it passible to Play floating with no resonance noises in Bass strings ? How is this passible .?

greetings ginod

[christianm77]

Basically I don't.

Which is OK for acoustic - you can't hear it in the context of a live gig - but not so good when playing an amplified archtop or electric guitar because the sound is much more compressed.

I think working on fret hand accuracy can help, but of course that does nothing to help with resonance.

Any ideas, or do we have to get.... a string dampener?

VintageArchtop.com

This was a common tool it seems of the older generation of players who perhaps used floating wrist, being brought up on acoustic boxes.

Nowadays, it's more common for players to mute with the right hand.

[lawson-stone]

Watch videos of Joe Pass. He plays with an almost textbook RH technique. With the pick, no anchoring, a floating RH. With finger-style, again, no anchoring or propping. I always marvel at Joe Pass' technique with both hands because it is so economical. His LH never seems to stretch or reach, his thumb position is always dead-on, and he seems utterly unhindered with any idea he wants to play.

[christianm77]

Watch videos of Joe Pass. He plays with an almost textbook RH technique. With the pick, no anchoring, a floating RH. With finger-style, again, no anchoring or propping. I always marvel at Joe Pass' technique with both hands because it is so economical. His LH never seems to stretch or reach, his thumb position is always dead-on, and he seems utterly unhindered with any idea he wants to play.

I think you could have joe pass level technique and still run into problems with sympathetic resonance. That's just physics.

(That said if anyone could break the laws of physics, it would be Joe.)

However when you play fingerstyle, your thumb can easily mute unused bass strings. Can't do that when picking though.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Any ideas, or do we have to get.... a string dampener?

VintageArchtop.com

This was a common tool it seems of the older generation of players who perhaps used floating wrist, being brought up on acoustic boxes.

It hasn't completely gone away, but scrunchies and other "hair technologies" have probably mostly taken its place.

[christianm77]

So I'm having a think about this. I think the thing is, when you play rock guitar or something string resonance is a really big deal, because it muddies up the distortion etc.

However, when you play jazz it doesn't matter too much when you are actually playing. You will just hear the main note and not the resonant notes. In a band, it isn't so much of an problem. You have your amp set low and pick stronger.

If you have the amp too high, of course, you run into feedback problems.

When you stop playing you can just mute with your right hand knuckles.

With Joe Pass playing on his own, I notice he will rarely leave gaps. So after a single note run he will go direct to some chords, so the ringing notes are never heard. Chords are easy to mute with the fret hand. When he stops, he can mute the strings with his right hand knuckles.

You do need accurate fretting and picking to minimise the unwanted open strings, though.

If you play loud, might be useful to have the damper.

[christianm77]

It hasn't completely gone away, but scrunchies and other "hair technologies" have probably mostly taken its place.

Not quite as elegant looking. I've ordered a string dampener from stringsdirect, but TBH the thing looks pretty rubbish, and there will be barbed comments if I put that shit on my archtop. People are already taking the piss out of my Knight Rider style TC electronic clip on tuner ;-)

[whiskey02]

I severely limited rotation of my picking hand wrist, can't even think about palm muting. What I do is to play more so on my finger pads rather than tips, finger joints a little bit flatter. So if I'm on the E string and move to the A, I place my finger on the A with the tip touching the E just enough to dampen it. It is perhaps not the "best" way to damp unwanted sounds, but for me with my arm bones fused together at birth, it is the ONLY way I can do it. The benefit to this "limitation" is that I find it allows me to keep a more relaxed, lower tension fretting hand. If you want to split hairs about it, I think it produces a slightly warmer, rounded tone, the string being stopped by softer flesh rather than a boney tip. I am on the thinner side and not blessed with meaty finger tips.

[matt.guitarteacher]

It is perhaps not the "best" way to damp unwanted sounds,

Nope. That's how it's done. Carry on.

[dasein]

A combination of...

- Left hand muting, which someone described above nicely.

- Right hand muting. It seems a bit like cheating, but essentially you still touch the strings to mute even while floating. Sounds like an oxymoron, but if you keep it to a very light brush rather than using it as a support point, your hand still feels like it's floating while still giving you muting capabilities.

- Different technique for different sounds. You can decide to use a completely different set of left/right hand techniques playing jazz, vs. playing funk or punchy blues with a lot of muting and raking. This seems like a very practical option, IMO.

- Stop caring. Christian alluded to this, but essentially if you don't CARE that certain strings ring out, why worry about it? At low volumes, it might not matter. Even at higher volumes, it might not matter... the sympathetic resonance might make certain notes or chords sound bigger. And there's a long list of guitarists who were able to make use of guitar noise and feedback, from Hendrix to Haino. Why not you?

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I'm a scrunchie user. It's my daughter's -- I haven't had that much hair in years

[whiskey02]

I'm a scrunchie user. It's my daughter's -- I haven't had that much hair in years

Been meaning to try that, but I do love open strings.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Been meaning to try that, but I do love open strings.

When I switch from comping to single notes I slide it forward. It's easy to push it back, too.

[christianm77]

I got the Gruv Gear muter thingy. Seems legit.

[whiskey02]

I've always been amazed at how the guys that play 2 Marshall full stacks on 11 can keep keep sh#t under control. We all make mistakes but when your mistake come out at 105db???

[matt.guitarteacher]

I've always been amazed at how the guys that play 2 Marshall full stacks on 11 can keep keep sh#t under control. We all make mistakes but when your mistake come out at 105db???

Those guys are the best at muting though, single note or otherwise. It's really the starting point for them, but of course, they use muted tones on what is actually PLAYED as well. Kids pick it up immediately and naturally. Don't have to be taught. Honestly, too LITTLE volume, too clean, too little sustain - all lengthen the learning curve.

It's like practicing anything, if you want to get better at something you practice it in isolation. If you only practice diminished as they occasionally happen in tunes, you're always going to be that much worse on diminished, compared to everything else.

I still say, if you want to get better at muting, crank it. By doing so, you "isolate" the problem of things ringing over, and you will be compelled, quite naturally, to fix it. Your ears and fingers will figure out what to do pretty quickly and naturally, when presented with the worst case scenario.

[morroben]

I still say, if you want to get better at muting, crank it. By doing so, you "isolate" the problem of things ringing over, and you will be compelled, quite naturally, to fix it. Your ears and fingers will figure out what to do pretty quickly and naturally, when presented with the worst case scenario.

I don't do the floating thing, but I have spent a ton of time working on muting for slide and lap steel playing. I completely agree with the above quote. You have to turn the amp up a couple of notches past where you normally practice and then figure out how to deal with the noises you want to eliminate.

[Guitarzen]

There are multiple ways you can mute with both left and right hand. You can float the right hand and still learn to mute with it when needed. Usually muting is something I do without thinking about it because after playing for 26 years I just kind of do it by reflex. One time in a lesson someone asked me about muting and I realized I had no idea really exactly how I did it, so I was kind of like "uh...well let me see what I'm doing and then I'll try to explain it!". Then as I was playing some examples with muting I realized it can actually get quite complicated. One thing that I was surprised to realize that I had gotten to the point where I could mute just 1 specific string with my right hand palm mute technique without even thinking about it. My conclusion was that I had never consciously tried to work on muting. You just pick it up over the years when you hear a string making noise you tend to learn to single that string out, either with the left hand or right hand. It's almost like learning to walk in a way --- if you start to lose your balance your brain makes some minor adjustments to keep your balance, but if you start over thinking and trying to analyze it you would actually do worse at keeping your balance. I think in the same way you have to learn to mute by reacting in a reflexive way without over thinking it or over planning it. Eventually you'll just develop the proper reflexes / movements / touches / mutes. The best thing you could probably do to help develop your mutes is plug in and turn the volume up louder. You'll be forced by circumstance of having string noise amplified to learn to mute ;o)