struggling with muting power chords

practicing 12 bar blues with a crunch setting
On the amp and muting the strings close to the bridge
I find the e string is much louder than the a string when doing muted power chord blues
any tips or excersised at all?
this is robs sister Sarah

Hi Sarah,

When you're muting in a comfortable position, look at your strumming hand where it's resting on the bridge and you'll see that it's kinda at an angle from right down to left so the low E string is the first one to go unmuted, that's what makes it louder than the others. You can either re-position your hand so it's more in line with the bridge (straight up and down) which feels a little unnatural..or
Try moving your (strumming) hand slightly left or right while you're playing muted power chords to see what sounds better. I would experiment by sliding my hand back till it wasn't muting the strings anymore..then slowly moving it onto the strings until I got a sound I liked.

I hope this isn't too confusing, it's so much easier just to show someone!

Neal
GT Channel Host

what im finding is the e sounds great but the a string is hardly playing at all
any tips on that

It's probably because there's more of your hand covering the A string then there is covering the E string, try making your right hand cover the same amount of string on every one.

Neal :rolleyes:

Originally Posted by: gmixstudioswhat im finding is the e sounds great but the a string is hardly playing at all
any tips on that

Sometimes it's not just the angle of your hand but of the guitar too. There seems to be an optimum spot for most players. While each is a little different, in all, the angle of the guitar should by slight upwards going from the bottom bout of the guitar to the headstock. You want the butt of the guitar to rest on your inner (right) thigh and the curvy (waist) part resting somewhat on top of the other (left) thigh. For me, ideally, I wear a strap even when I'm sitting.

I mention all the above is that it seems lots of folks learning have the guitar positioned such that it appears parallel with a level floor and that makes for awkward positions to play in.

Based on your descrpition, that one string seems ok and the other not, if you have the wrong angle for your hand, you will be placing your wrist in unnatural positions and get inconsistent issue like described.

With the right angle of the guitar, those fights become easier.

My thoughts.

Jeff's got a good point here