This lesson introduces palm muting as a necessary tool that every guitarist needs for articulation and expression of style. In learning to palm mute, make sure that you're listening to plenty of artists that use this technique. It's all over the place in every rock style. You'll find it used by artists such as Metallica, Lamb of God, and Children of Bodom all the way to less heavy artists like Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry and Natalie Merchant. To master this technique, rest the thick portion of the outside of your palm over the bridge of your guit...

Let's begin learning this technique with a simple chromatic progression in the style of Metallica or Slayer. This simple movement will give you a good idea of what palm muting feels and sounds like. Master this example first and then move on to more complex ideas. Even if Heavy Metal is not your thing, you'll find that the skill taken by learning this simple progression translates in every style of rock. Also note that every guitar is different. The bridge of your specific guitar will dictate how you best mute the strings. Think of the meat of your palm as a damper, a...

We return to the realm of palm muting in this series, combining the techniques discussed so far: barre and power chords, palm muting, and arpeggiation with the fundamental open chords learned in Beginner Levels 1 and 2. We will build a stronger muting technique with more complex progressions and more complex uses of the chord voicings and picking techniques. Be ready for a chops explosion!

The next step in mastering palm muting is to create accents within the riff you play. These accents occur when you lift your palm to let the strings ring. All great rock groups use this technique and your group should be no exception. Learn to lift your mute (your palm) with as little motion as possible to create the accented chord. Also, try it with distortion to get the best idea of how drastic this small movement can sound, but also without distortion to master the subtleties of the technique.

This lessons combines using power and barre chords along with muting and accents. You'll find this combination of chord voicings, muting and accents in the style of The Police. This is our first attempt in combining all of these elements, so take advantage of the opportunity to solidify your chord knowledge and master muting while playing with a "live band" at the Jam Station.

Let's begin this series with two kinds of chord voicings: 1 Barre Chord and 2 Open Chords. Let's use two kinds of picking and articulation techniques: Arpeggiation and Muting/Accents. This will challenge you in that we'll arpeggiate every chord. Make sure your barre is secure on the barre chord and your fingers are arched high on every chord. The arpeggiation will let you hear how well you've made each chord. We'll also challenge your muting technique. You will mute some strings in the arpeggiation while accenting others by letting them ring. Pay close att...

Let's take our muting and accents techniques and put them into a riff that involves a pedal tone. The pedal tone is our low E string and will be played in rhythm when we aren't playing power chords. Our power chords will be our accents and will provide the rhythm that will identify the riff. This technique will be explored further in later tutorials, so get your chops up on this progression now.

In this lesson we'll take a riff in the style of Slipknot and use our palm muting to shape power chords and single notes. In using some single notes, you'll find that you make your muting technique more precise and you are able to control it better. You'll also find that you'll build your chops and be able to play faster passages using this technique. Master this example first before trying the technique in riffs that you compose or lift from your favorite groups.

Powerful combinations can be made when combining all the techniques we've learned so far. In this riff we'll test our picking hand with some pretty quick muted arpeggios. This riff will give your picking hand a bit of a rest by following the arpeggios with power chords. This will build your chops incredibly as you combine the two techniques. Not only will your technique become better, but also you'll notice a dynamic change in the quality of the music. This is another part of building credible songs and riff. You'll actually be putting "feel" into what you're playing...

Let's try and do it all - a test of strength, if you will! Open chords, barre chords and power chords. Muting, accents, arpeggiation and strumming. No stone left unturned in a progression in the style of 80's hard rock. If you can play this, you'll be able to proceed and do well in the following tutorials. Don't be afraid to try these techniques in your own progressions as well. If you've got the tools, build something!

Guitar Fundamentals 1 & 2 will take you from the bare beginning - how do I hold the guitar? - all the way through to playing simple melodies, learning how to play all the most common major and minor chords, reading music, and ending with tutorials on how to play barre chords, the "power chords" behind most rock music. This section will show you four tutorials taken from Guitar Fundamentals 1 & 2. The first two tutorials are taken from Guitar Fundamentals 1. The first tutorial teaches a simplified version of the C and G chords, suitable for your first attempt to play c...

We have three types of lessons on the guitartricks website, designed for people with different learning styles, or maybe just different amounts of free time on hand. Our simplest and quickest lessons are called "tips and tricks" that take about 15 minutes. We also have "tutorials" that take about 1-2 hours to complete, and full length courses with about 100 videos in sequence that will take you 2-8 weeks to master. You've already seen some excerpts from our courses. Now let's take a look at these other types of lessons. The following lessons are in the quick "ti...

The next free lessons that we want to show you take up where Guitar Fundamentals 1 & 2 left off. We call this moment, where you have the basics down, but not too much experience "Level One." These Level One courses expect that you have the fundamentals down, and take you to the next stage of really being able to play some guitar. At this point in your learning, you will need to pick a style. The fundamentals of guitar are the same in most every style, but after the beginning the techniques start to change as you become more skilled. We have three courses at Level On...

This is the intro video for the Free Lessons Course

One of the great things about Guitar Tricks is it is always getting bigger and bigger. We add new lessons and instructors all the time. These specially selected players are accomplished teachers with something special to say about playing the guitar in a wide variety of styles.

We really hope you enjoyed these free lessons and learned some new techniques. Inspiration is everything in music, so we hope we have inspired you to put in some quality time with your guitar. If you want more lessons, please sign up for the Guitar Tricks Full Access subscription. You will get complete access to all 3000+ lessons and all the new lessons we create every month. Thanks again and welcome to Guitar Tricks!

Once you have mastered the basics, either in your previous experience or through the Guitar Tricks Fundamentals and Level One courses, you are then able to explore all the rest of the huge Guitar Tricks library of lessons. These lessons are generally grouped into "tutorials" that cover a single topic in depth with 5-15 videos. A tutorial usually will take 1-2 hours, and they cover every guitar topic under the sun from techniques to exercises to copying the style of famous players. For experienced players, tutorials are the fun part of Guitar Tricks where you really ...

This series of lessons will teach the user how to combine barre, power and open chords along with palm muting and arpeggiation to create chord progressions that rock.

Palm Muting is an essential technique for every rock guitarist. This tutorial will walk you through the mechanics of how to use palm muting with power and barre chords, accents, and more.

This is the intro video for the Free Lessons Course

We really hope you enjoyed these free lessons and learned some new techniques. Inspiration is everything in music, so we hope we have inspired you to put in some quality time with your guitar. If you want more lessons, please sign up for the Guitar Tricks Full Access subscription. You will get complete access to all 3000+ lessons and all the new lessons we create every month. Thanks again and welcome to Guitar Tricks!

One of the great things about Guitar Tricks is it is always getting bigger and bigger. We add new lessons and instructors all the time. These specially selected players are accomplished teachers with something special to say about playing the guitar in a wide variety of styles.

Once you have mastered the basics, either in your previous experience or through the Guitar Tricks Fundamentals and Level One courses, you are then able to explore all the rest of the huge Guitar Tricks library of lessons. These lessons are generally grouped into "tutorials" that cover a single topic in depth with 5-15 videos. A tutorial usually will take 1-2 hours, and they cover every guitar topic under the sun from techniques to exercises to copying the style of famous players. For experienced players, tutorials are the fun part of Guitar Tricks where you really ...

We have three types of lessons on the guitartricks website, designed for people with different learning styles, or maybe just different amounts of free time on hand. Our simplest and quickest lessons are called "tips and tricks" that take about 15 minutes. We also have "tutorials" that take about 1-2 hours to complete, and full length courses with about 100 videos in sequence that will take you 2-8 weeks to master. You've already seen some excerpts from our courses. Now let's take a look at these other types of lessons. The following lessons are in the quick "ti...

The next free lessons that we want to show you take up where Guitar Fundamentals 1 & 2 left off. We call this moment, where you have the basics down, but not too much experience "Level One." These Level One courses expect that you have the fundamentals down, and take you to the next stage of really being able to play some guitar. At this point in your learning, you will need to pick a style. The fundamentals of guitar are the same in most every style, but after the beginning the techniques start to change as you become more skilled. We have three courses at Level On...

Guitar Fundamentals 1 & 2 will take you from the bare beginning - how do I hold the guitar? - all the way through to playing simple melodies, learning how to play all the most common major and minor chords, reading music, and ending with tutorials on how to play barre chords, the "power chords" behind most rock music. This section will show you four tutorials taken from Guitar Fundamentals 1 & 2. The first two tutorials are taken from Guitar Fundamentals 1. The first tutorial teaches a simplified version of the C and G chords, suitable for your first attempt to play c...