Der Leiermann by Franz Schubert for Solo Guitar

There are many ways to create the dynamics we talked about in Part 1, other than simply strumming louder or softer. Some of them are accomplished with the strumming hand, and others with the chording hand.

A great example of a technique used with the chording hand is best exemplified in the song Heart of Gold by Neil Young. In the well-known opening sequence, the chording hand squeezes the chord with the strum, but then immediately lets go, still touching the strings, creating a damping effect and cutting the notes short. This takes a little practise, getting the timing just right, but is not a difficult technique once you get the hang of it. Listen to the video below and you’ll hear Neil’s guitar playing, especially at the beginning, doing this damping effect:

To try this out yourself, try a G chord. I only suggest that chord because you can strum all the strings, but you can try it with any open chord. Strum it, and then stop pressing the strings and just touching them. Some of the strings will still ring because you don’t have your fingers on them, but that doesn’t matter. The idea is to create the effect of some of the notes stopping. It gives a kind of percussive feel to the strum.

In the next video, you’ll see me explaining how I play the song. There’s a little talking at the beginning, but as I get into the intro of the song, you can see my chording hand doing exactly as I described above:

That is one technique that creates a bit of a dynamic. Another one I’d like to talk about is the palm mute. A more recent song that exemplifies this is Adele’s Rollin’ In The Deep. In the very beginning especially, you can hear the acoustic guitar creating a palm mute:

A palm mute is created actually using the SIDE of palm of your strumming hand. If you look at the photo below, the side of the palm is resting on the strings, just in front of the bridge. When you keep your palm there and try to strum, not a full strum, but just the top two or three bass strings, you’ll probably get nothing but the sound of the muted strings at first, so you have to experiment a bit to get the sound right. If you lighten up the pressure a bit, you’ll get more of the sound of the notes mixed in there. Palm mutes are used a lot with electric guitar in rock and metal music. It’s that “chug, chug” sound you hear in a lot of songs in those genres that give them that pounding drive.

In the next series of tips and tricks, we’ll start to explore some left-hand (or chording hand) techniques that will perk up your playing and making it sound much more impressive Stay tuned! IJ