mute

[petelanger]

@mrmikedunnergmail-com I will try to reply to this post. There’s another very similar one which I’ll ignore.

Not much context was given with the question. I understand you are muting strings when you don’t want to. So I will assume this is with the fretting hand while forming chord shapes. This is very common, if you are a beginner, it’s a rite of passage in a way – earning your stripes to be able to play clean chords.

Hear are some suggestions, I’m reposting here from a similar question a while back:

1. Position: you want to play in the best possible position for comfort and ease to place your fingers properly. This is something you can play around with, raising the neck up, adjusting the shoulder and elbow. Certain chords may require you to come at the fretboard differently.
2. Pressure: when we’re learning we have a tendency to press very hard, trying to eliminate the buzzing or thuds. Getting the finger closer to the fret wire means less pressure will still work. We need to find that sweet spot where it’s a clean note but minimum pressure. This is still something I focus on everyday, because I still press to hard when making certain chords, like the D major.
3. Light strings: make it easier by using lighter strings. This will change the tone, but there are lots of options and you might find you like the brighter sound. Also, every guitar has it’s “soul mate” when it comes to the marriage between the guitar+player and strings. I recently switched my favorite guitar to D’Addario EJ11-3D Light Guage and I was absolutely floored how beautiful my guitar started sounding to my ears.
4. Tuning: @jorgemac should advise you here, but you can tune your guitar down a 1/2 step or even more, makes it much easier to fret. Great for practicing and I believe he said he slaps on a capo to play along with the challenges. I haven’t done this myself but I’m going to eventually.
5. Nails: always have the finger nails on your fretting hand trimmed as short as possible. This is essential for beginner players.
6. Based on your question I assume you are a new player. You may not have developed callouses on your finger tips. As you do, this will help with the issue of string muting.
7. Make sure you are fretting with the tips of your fingers, the strings should be making their indentation marks about 1/10 inch (2mm) from the finger nail. Much further than that and you’re fretting with the pads and that’s going to cause muting.
8. Time: learning to fret cleanly simply doesn’t happen in an hour, or a week or month. Some of more difficult shapes could take several months of doing it several times a day before your brain can direct your fingers adequately. I redirect you to #2 again because it is key. Play around with breaking the chord into individual notes and just fret those notes with finger you would be using in the chord. (make sure you are close to the fret wire). Release pressure and find where it still rings clean and starts to buzz. Over time you have to teach your fingers to press that hard and not much harder.

[jorgemac]

If you are playing and practicing “tight” that is part of the problem. When i am doing something new on guitars i tend to hunch over and tighten up my hand and arm muscles and place my palm too close to the back of the neck.

I know that i do this and now make myself relax, sit back , place my thumb in the middle of the back of the neck and make sure i can see the palm of my picking hand above the fretboard, for my size hand, about a half of and inch. this puts more arch in my fingers and so i hold the strings down at a much better angle that doesn’t mute other strings unless I want it too. It takes practice to do this unconsciously, just like every little learning step to play guitar. Good Luck.