Best way to miss strings while strumming?

[u/Aduron213]

Hi all, I’m curious about how to “miss” strings while strumming somewhat faster. For example, if I’m playing a progression of triads on the top three strings, and I’m strumming eighth notes in a reasonably fast time, I find I’m always hitting the other strings. I know I can mute sometimes with my fretting hand (like with the movable B7 chord), but that’s for strings next to my fingers, not all three.

Do I need to just “get better at strumming”, missing particular strings? I can do it when I go super slowly, but that rhythmic, fast, down-up strumming always hits all 6 strings or none. If so, what exercises work on that?

[u/ttwii70]

Try some regular practice on this kind of strumming but specifically being conscious of how far the pick travels. What we all want to do is switch off concentrating and just thrash. When things get fast we obviously increase speed and this usually means we can't confine the travel of the pick. Find the tempo where you start to lose control. Hang out there for a bit playing down up down up on every odd beat, so resting on 2 and 4. Have your pick already resting on string 3 and just try and play with only the travel you need to reach string 1 but try not to cramp up when restricting the travel. Soft hands all the way. On the up strokes you could just play the top 2 strings as string 3 will still be ringing anyway. It's a good technique for reducing the clutter and just frees up the pick from getting too caught up in the strings. That's another thing - don't present too much of the pick to the strings. It creates too much resistance and makes you feel like you need a heavier swing when you don't.

[u/Opening_Spite_4062]

If you do a D shape triad like xxx565 you can let the index finger on the G string mute the D string by touching it, and you can wrap your thumb to mute the rest. Some shapes are harder to do stuff like this, so a combination of a bit more precise strumming and left hand muting is best I think. Look into some funk lessons maybe.

[u/Pitiful-Temporary296]

Yes get better at strumming it’s not impossible to become more accurate but do so in conjunction with improving your left and right hand muting technique. These mechanics are closely related

[u/AbjectPineapple6774]

Look up palm muting

[u/Aduron213 → u/AbjectPineapple6774]

I’ve heard of it — are you saying I should palm mute only some strings? I didn’t know that was possible.

[u/AbjectPineapple6774 → u/Aduron213]

Yeah, so it takes some time to get the hang of, but with practice you can use palm muting to achieve what you’re looking for. I use it quite a bit, learned mostly through playing a lot of Dave Matthews, who uses the style pretty regularly.

There may be other ways, but this is what I do.

[u/lildergs]

Practice. You can do a combination of right and left hand mutes but ultimately you just gotta practice accuracy with your strumming hand.

[u/fusilaeh700]

finger on 3rd string needs to mute 4th

[u/Clear-Pear2267]

Muting. Both left and right hand.