Do you dampen the D string?

[genemichaels]

I had this question posted to my group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Guitar_Coach

Can anyone in this group anwer the question for us?

--------------------------------------------------

OK, here's an item that has been confusing me. On
several occasions I have seen tabs similar to the
following standard blues turnaround:

|-----0-----0-----0--------|--------0-----2--
|--------------------------|-----0-----3--0--
|--------4-----3-----2--0h-|--1-----------2--
|--------------------------|--------------1--
|--------5-----4-----3-----|--------------2--
|--0-----------------------|-----------------
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 1 2 3 2 + (3 4)

Note the finger placement on the second beat of the
first measure. They have the A string fretted on the
5th fret, then skip the D string, and have the G
string fretted on the 4th fret.

So, when actually playing this, do you dampen the D
string with a finger and strum all three strings? Or
are they literally doing to different plucks (A & G)
in quick succession?

ThanX!

Gene Michaels
http://www.A-AAmericanAgency.com

[PonyOne]

I suppose you could do it either way. I grabbed my Kramer and gave it a go.

I use a pick about 95% of the time, but just just looking at the structure of the tab for a glance it looks like it's finger-picked.

When I play I played it like this:

t=thumb i=index m=middle r=ring p=pinky

|-----0-----0-----0--------|--------0-----2--
|--------------------------|-----0-----3--0--
|--------4-----3-----2--0h-|--1-----------2--
|--------------------------|--------------1--
|--------5-----4-----3-----|--------------2--
|--0-----------------------|-----------------
t m t/i m t/i m t/i m m/i m r i m

I think that the notes may be intended to be individually picked simultaneously and the last notes (the 2's) i assume are supposed to be played in unison... i plucked with my thumb, index and middle fingers. I hope that made some degree of sense. Luck would have it I trimmed down my fingernails down last night so i'm not getting as much tone out of the lick as I would normally, but honestly, I think this is a really awesome fingerpick exersize.

Here's an example of a tab where you mute the middle of three strings. The song is "Low" by the Foo Fighters, which is a pretty cool song, IMHO, it's a very simple song in terms of structure but it's fun and sounds cool, plus you have to machinegun pick fairly often so it's a good picking hand workout. Generally, when people tab songs that need to have the middle string muted they denote it with an "x" when you would mute. And it's something I do personally, I don't think anyone else does: when I want to indicate a ring through, rather than making the bar "------" i make it "~~~~" Example:

e----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G------------------------15~~~17~~~----------------------15~~~11~~~
D------------------------x~~~~x~~~~----------------------x~~~~x~~~~
A------------------------13~~~15~~~----------------------13~~~9~~~~
E--555555555555-------------------444444444444------------------
...machinegun!.......slide up......MG42, baby... slide down

Hope this shed some light.

[Edited by PonyOne on 09-17-2003 at 04:35 PM]

[Jolly McJollyson]

maybe that's not such a good idea, it looks like you're indicating a vibrato.

[PonyOne]

didn't know there was such a thing in tab...