Hello! Justin here. How you doin?
In this lesson now we're going to be checking out
a little bit of more advanced
power chord technique and also introduce
a little thing called "palm muting" which is a very very cool
mainly a rock technique
that works on electric guitar
but it also sounds very cool
on acoustic guitar.
You can even use it for your 12-bar blues stuff as well
so it is pretty handy little cool thing to do.
So the first thing I want to talk about is
you've now got your power chords
with the 6 strings root and you've also got
a power chord with the 5th string root
So a really good exercise is to practice going through
any or all of your power chords
and playing them on both the 6th string and the 5th string
so, if you took, say a C power chord
you could have that as the 6th string root
at the 8th fret
♪
or the 5th string root at the 3rd fret
♪
They nearly sound identical
♪
You'd also have, say a G chord
at the 6th string root, 3rd fret
♪
or the 10th fret, 5th string root
♪
And you can hear this one sounds an octave higher
♪
but they're essentially the same chords.
It wouldn't matter if it was written in the music
to play one and you played the other
It wouldn't matter if "that" or "that"
It just sound slightly different
It's up to you to choose
So that's the first thing that's really important to realize
that every chord, power chord, can be played in 2 different places.
It also leads to a little bit of a confusion as to which one
are you going to choose if it just says in the music to play C
well, you're going to play this C, or this C
There's even another one up here. so which one are you going to choose?
Usually, you're looking for the ones that are the easiest to get to
Sometimes you might want one that is further away
deliberately 'cause it's going to sound higher
Or 'cause you want to get a sliding effect up to it sliding effect up to it
But usually you pick the nearest one
Now, one of the chord progressions
that we looked at in the very first one
when we look at power chords
with the 6th string root
It was the same sequence that went
F, B♭
A♭ to D♭
It's a very very common chord sequence, right?
Now, of course jumping around that much
if you are playing in a rock band
and you're jumping 'round and you try to check out
all the hot chicks up the front and bash your head around
and probably swig a bottle of Jack Daniels or whatever
you try to do at the same time
then the last thing you ought to be doing
is looking at the guitar trying to shift around
and get your fingers moving like that
It's just not happening. So, what we want to do
is try to simplify that so the movements that you have to make
on the neck aren't quite as big.
Now the first chord sequence was F to B♭
Now, that's a big jump already. That's like a five-fret jump.
We could also go from F to B♭
and stay in the same fret because F is in the 1st fret
with the 6th string root and B♭ is in the
1st fret with the 5th string root
so, of course, it's going to be a bit cooler to go
♪
and the next chord was
A♭
No getting around that
you're going to have to make a jump
But the next chord was D♭
which is also a big five-fret jump
Then we could go A♭
to D♭
because A♭ and D♭
are in the same fret too
So now we'd have
F - B♭ - A♭ - D♭
It's really important this, that you get the idea
of trying to look as you're learning a tune
especially if you're learning like
tabs off the Internet or whatever
where it just gives you the chord
and you've got no further instruction
That you really think about
which chords you might use
and also try and listen
because it takes a little bit of practice
But you can learn to hear
Where a power chord might be played
if it is this one
♪
or this one
♪
They sound different, right?
So if you try one and you try the other one
you listen to a record of the song that you're trying to play
you will listen to it and go
"Well, that sounds like the high one"
and you're probably right
Remember, these little inside of head attachments I don't mean my hat, I mean the ears
Those things are really really good
at helping you play guitar
because they tell the truth
they say "yeah, this one sounds right" or
"that one doesn't sound right"
So, make sure you trust your ears
that's really important
So, have a little fiddle about where you play
what power chords
and the thing I want to explain to you right now
is thing called "Palm Muting", right?
I'm just going to play a G power chord
so "this" would be kind of normal
♪
that's palm muted
Normal
palm muted
and the reason it's called a "Palm Mute"
is because we are using this part of our hand
the outside of your hand. The bit that you might do
a karate chop with if you're karate chopping a–
not that they really do karate chops
but I think you probably know what I mean
It's that little outside bit of your hand
and you're going to rest that right on the strings
at the back of the guitar. Just if you look where
the actual bridge is where the strings are making contact
with the bridge, the saddles you're putting it right on there
Just lean it forward a little bit so you can play
your chord (♪)
and you've got a palm mute effect.
Now what's interesting is the further back you go
Now we've got no palm mute 'cause we're off the back of the...
the palm is not touching the strings as you bring it forward
you get more and more muted until you just get clicky
and it doesn't make any sense So, any further then, say
two inches away from the bridge you don't really get a sound
you just get kind of a click But what you're really after there
is just bringing it forward a bit that kind of a muddies it up.
If you're playing Metallica or Green Day or something like that
That would be a really cool effect to be doing
especially, if you kind of play
some with the palm muting
some without
♪
That kind of thing
It is really worth being able to play a chord
2 and 3 and 4 and
So the first one
open
then 2 and 3 and 4 and
are all muted
♪
Really a good technique
to get used to with this thing
where you're resting it on the guitar
it does make it sound kind of heavy
especially with a lot of distortion
it gives that rock-metal sound
but it also sounds cool
with the blues
If we think back to our regular
12-bar blues rhythm
♪
we add a little bit of palm mute
♪
sounds pretty cool, I reckon like that
♪
No palm mute
with the palm mute back on
It is definitely something that you want to check out there
A little bit of palm mute on your 12-bar blues
always sounds good
♪
so have a little bit of an experiment with this palm mute
See if you can learn to listen to it
so when you are listening to a track
that you're trying to play and you've got the tab out
whatever and you're trying to figure it out
or, even better, you're transcribing
a song by yourself, just use your ears
and try and hear "Oh, is he using any palm mute there, or not?"
and then, as you get used to it
you hear it more and you've played it more
you will start to recognize it pretty quickly
and be able to use it whenever you like
So, I hope you've enjoyed that
and I'll see you for another lesson
sometime really soon
Take care!
Bye-bye