Muting Chords and Notes

Muting your ‘ukulele playing at the right times can really open up a song, and that, as we know, is important. You can mute notes and you can mute chords. When I say “mute” I mean stop it before it would normally trail off. The first way to mute is with all of your fingers in the shape of a chord.

Chord Muting

Muting a chord is especially important if you want to play reggae on the ‘ukulele. You wouldn’t hear Bob Marley letting his chord strikes go away on their own – choke off those notes!

It’s easiest to mute a chord if you are using a closed position shape or “barre” chord. This allows for all of your strings to be covered by your fingers. Now to mute the chord, just strum and then lift your fingers up enough to stop the notes. It’s going to take some practice to get a fast strum-lift which turns into a quick “pop”.

Try this reggae beat with a mute after every chord (upstrums please). You will be playing on beat 2 and 4:

A |--count:-----3-----3-|-----3-----3-|-5---5-|-5---5-|-3-
E |-(1-2-3-4-1)-3-(3)-3-|-(1)-3-(3)-3-|-5---5-|-5---5-|-3-
C |-------------4-----4-|-----4-----4-|-5---5-|-5---5-|-4-
G |-------------5-----5-|-----5-----5-|-7---7-|-7---7-|-5-

Pinky Mute

The next way to mute is with your pinky. This way, instead of lifting your fingers, you just let your pinky fall and silence the strings. If you learn this, you can play some pretty funky stuff.

How to pinky mute:

1. Play a chord that doesn’t use your pinky.
2. Let the bottom of your pinky to fall and cover all of the ringing strings.

You have to work a little harder at this muting technique, so it’s not practical all the time for muting closed position chords. Use instead for open chords and weird rhythms. You can practice on the same chord pattern as above, just play the open form chords.

Blue Muting

I’m going to call this “blue muting” because these kinds of mutes are out of the blue and used for expression and accents. You don’t have to play real notes all the time – dead notes are fair game too.

You make an expression mute sound by putting your fingers over the strings lightly enough mute, but not to sound any notes. You can put your fingers on the strings in any combination. Pick a muted string for your “blue mute”. I can’t tell you how to use how to use these expressions in your ‘ukulele playing, that’s up to you.