Palm muting and a first riff

Listen to almost any rock song and you will hear a tight, chugging sound under the verses. That is palm muting: power chords played with the side of the strumming hand resting lightly on the strings, so they thud instead of ring.

• Rest the fleshy outer edge of your strumming hand, below the little finger, on the strings right where they meet the bridge.
• Strum down with short, small movements, keeping the hand in place.
• Move it towards the bridge for more ring, and away from it for more thud.

If the notes lose their pitch entirely and just click, your hand is too far from the bridge. You want a muted note, not no note.

In tab, palm muting is marked PM above the notes it applies to.

This is built entirely from the E5 and the moving shape. Play the open E string palm-muted, and let the power chords ring.

Count it slowly: four palm-muted eighth notes on the open E, then two strums of the power chord. Keep your strumming hand moving steadily down, even through the change.

When the riff feels comfortable, play it along with a click at a slow tempo. Riffs like this live or die by their timing: the muted notes need to be perfectly even, like a machine.