Got MUTED Guitar Strings? Try THIS!

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here in this lesson video, I'm going to be answering the very common question of how do I stop my guitar strings from muting when I play chords?

So this is probably one of the most common questions I get asked as a guitar teacher. You're playing a chord and it sounds like that you get these muted strings and in the beginning, that's probably one of the most frustrating sounds as a beginner guitar player. But I promise you, it does get better with time. And I'm going to go over some things in this video on how we can maybe solutionize and try and fix this problem. So tip number one is you actually have to develop calluses on your fingers. Now, your fingers are very soft and squishy when you first start playing guitar. And eventually that's why you get pain on your fingers. And eventually the skin is going to thicken and form a callus. Now, when you do that, it means that the finger can actually press the string down better because in the beginning when your fingers are squishy, they just, they just squish around the string. So that oftentimes means other fingers are going to hit other strings. So tip number one, if you haven't developed calluses yet and you're muting your strings, that could be part of the issue. And that will come with time. Hey, guitar enthusiasts, hope you guys are enjoying this video. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. This way, you'll see when I release new videos just like this one. The next biggest issue is usually the finger angle to the guitar. Now, when we're playing guitar, we want our fingers to be perpendicular to the fingerboard. Okay? A lot of people play at an angle like this with their guitar. The fretboard needs to be. The fingers have to be perpendicular, which means we have to bend this first knuckle to lay flatly on the fingerboard. Now, for a lot of people, that sometimes can be hard in the beginning because a lot of students in the beginning play with their guitar like this at a weird angle. See how my guitar is angled this way? Well, look at the fretboard. The fretboard is now also angled that way. It creates a weird angle for your fingers to properly play the chords versus when you straighten out the guitar straight up and down. Now, I know for some of you, you may, you know, if you're a woman like me and you're you, you have a big chest, it can sometimes be hard to get this guitar to lay flat or, you know, if you have a bit of a belly, sometimes that can be hard to get the guitar to lay flat. Do the best you can. If you have to loosen up your guitar strap and sit the guitar out a little bit further, you do the best you can because the most important part is the angle of the finger to the string. Now, if you are playing with your guitar straight up and down and you're still hearing muting, I tell people to try the pen technique or pencil, as long as it is a cylindrical object. Alright, what we're going to do is we're going to put this pen on the underside of the guitar and then we are going to form our chords around it. So say you're having difficulty with a D chord. A lot of people have trouble with their D chord. They this third finger sits flat and they mute the bottom string. So what I want you to do, because this is what happens with a lot of people, their hand is touching the bottom of the fretboard and they're cutting off a lot of their stretch. So if you put this pen underneath and then you form your D cord around the pen. Look what happens when I remove the pen. Look where my hand is. There's now a space between the fretboard and the hand. It actually allows you to curl better. Okay, so. So try that. I find a lot of people who have trouble with the D chord, they do the pen trick. And it usually fixes it 9 out of 10 times, not every time. Okay, now if that's not working, check your thumb position. I am a huge fan of resting the thumb over the top, but I've been playing guitar for a long time. My hand is very stretched out. But for some people in the beginning, they don't have a lot of flexibility in their hand. So you may need to scooch that thumb down more towards the side central part of the guitar. Let me see if I can get an angle for you guys. All right, you want to be on the center part of the fretboard. That will give you more stretch. And as you get better at the guitar, I think your hand sometimes naturally will want to do this. That's what my hand naturally wants to do. And it doesn't affect me with playing chords. It's just that's what's comfortable for me. So you might want to play with the thumb position so that your hand has a better angle towards the guitar. Just so you guys know, I do have an entire beginner guitar course where I teach a lot of these techniques. And I do a lot of the chord practice with my students. So if you're interested in learning guitar in a step by step manner, go check that out. I'll put a link in the description below. The last thing I want to tell you about muting strings is to just be patient. A lot of people really try to rush the process and in the beginning, I. I'm talking like the first three to six months when you're learning guitar. When I focus with students, you focus more on the mechanics than everything sounding perfect. So if you're playing a C chord, you know, and it sounds okay with a little bit of muting, I'm less concerned about that because over time your hand is going to get stronger, your hand is going to stretch out and you're going to be able to press these strings much easier. And as a side note, on pressing strings, if you're playing an acoustic, try playing an electric where the guitar strings are thinner. You might be able to press a little bit better and get your chords to ring out easier. Particularly if you're a beginner or an older player and you haven't developed a lot of hand strength yet. That can definitely help as well. So I hope you guys found these tips on how to get your guitar strings to stop muting while you're playing chords helpful. YouTube is going to pop up a couple more videos over there. Go check those out. Maybe there's something else there that's going to help you out with making your guitar sound better.