I'm having some trouble with muting. I only recently decided I wanted to play lead and joined GuitarTricks for the purpose of learning that. For years I just played chords and did a lot of finger picking with some simple riffs thrown in. So basically I muted with my left hand 90% of the time, and now I'm having to mute with my right while I'm trying to do solos, and it's frustrating. On cleaner settings it is easy, but when I try to do more distorted leads, I either do not enough and it gets messy, or I do too much and it sounds unintentionally palm muted.

I'm trying, but it's really annoying considering my fingerpicking sounds really great in comparison, and I'm not really having a problem fretting anything. It's all in the right hand.

Any suggestions? Help would be appreciated.

Hey hannaugh,
I actually use both hands to block unwanted strings, but it can take a while to get used to this. If I'm working on a new lead solo, I break it into sections to figure out how I need to block the strings. I think you're trying to do it all at once, and that's when it can get messy as you say.

Break it up into short licks, and figure out whether to palm mute with the RH, or whether to use the LH to block the strings. The most important thing is to slow it down, and play it the way you want it. If you hear something you don't want in there, figure out how to stop it. After you play it the way you want it slowly, then you can build the speed, because you know what you need to do and when to do it.

I hope this helps you, and let me know how it goes.

__________________
JD

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