Palm mute
A palm mute is done by resting the edge of your picking-hand palm right in front of the bridge while playing — not muting the string completely, just enough to shorten its ring. The harder the palm presses, the more muffled and "chugging" the sound; the lighter the touch, the more open the note stays.
Why it's closer to a dial than an on/off switch
Despite the name, palm muting isn't a binary effect: the amount of pressure genuinely changes the tone, from a felted, almost percussive low end to a barely-muffled note. That fine control is what makes Guitarshelf's metal gallop riff recognizable — without palm muting, the exact same frets would sound much closer to a plain rock riff.
The move is isolated in the technique sheet alternate picking with palm mute before being combined into a full riff.
Practical tips and common mistakes
- Place your palm right in front of the bridge, not in the middle of the string: the farther from the bridge, the more the sound gets fully muted instead of just shortened — exact placement matters as much as pressure.
- Keep the palm in constant contact with the strings throughout the riff, including between hits: lifting and resetting it for every note breaks the consistency of the sound and adds an unnecessarily bigger motion.
- Don't automatically pair palm muting with alternate picking: many palm-muted riffs (the metal gallop in particular) are played all-downstroke, not alternated — mixing the two techniques at random needlessly complicates coordination.
- Adjust pressure before judging the sound too muffled or too open: a palm mute is never "wrong," just mistuned for the effect you want — a small pressure adjustment almost always fixes the tone.