Silencing the strings

padlin

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When learning the chord melody for Silver Bells I find a lot of times the chords are ringing longer then I like when persist while finger picking the melody. The only way I've been stopping it is muting all the strings with my strumming palm. Could use some tips on what works for you.

Now that i think about it, I've noticed this on a lot of the tunes I play, either chords or single notes ringing on.
 
If you don't want notes ringing on, you could always play soprano. :)
 
If you don't want notes ringing on, you could always play soprano. :)

Guess I have to have a talk with my two current players in rotation. :p

I have never had much luck with palm muting and find I do much better with the fretting hand.
 
Use your fretting fingers to mute the strings. All it takes is the smallest little touch and the string will stop ringing out. Once you pluck the string, lift up slightly so your finger is still on the string you just plucked and it will stop ringing.
 
The fretted strings are not a problem , the sustain drops when I lift my fingers, it's the open strings that ring on and on as long as they are left open. I'll have to see if I can figure out how to mute the open ones using my fretting fingers. Thanks for the input folks.
 
If you're using your pointer finger to fret the note, try just quickly putting down your middle, ring and pinky on the strings really quickly. It takes practice, but go slowly and you'll get it. If you're fretting with 3 fingers, like a G chord, just twist your wrist to the point where you can mute with your pinky. If you can't get your pinky down, I assume you're holding the uke in the crook between your thumb and pointer which makes muting very hard. Try holding chords with by doing a pinching motion with your thumb and whatever finger you're fretting with.
 
I use combination of picking palm/fingers , left hand fretting fingers, and choosing a different note written on tab (I don't read standard notation for uke ) (also the campanella style that John king promotes is highly overrated; lot of music doesn't incessantly incorporate continuously overlapping notes meshing and confusing musical phrases and harmony...for instance, king sometimes writes in an open string note on the last beat of a measure which is wrong. Imo. I change it to a fretted note as that prepares the cleanliness of the new phrase usually w a start of a new measure)

I first work out what I need to do in those spots and then after incorporating them into how I am going to play the piece, I start working on memorizing that
 
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