When you picture yourself as a guitarist, you probably think of playing loud on stage in front of lots of people. The image of struggling through practice sessions at home when you know you can’t make a lot of noise is not the most romantic.
However, having the option to play quietly is great if you don’t want others to hear what you’re up to (or to save their ears if you’re a total beginner). Alternatively, if you’re living close to other people in an environment like an apartment, playing loud might be prohibited late at night or early in the morning. Practicing heavy metal at 3 am? Expect a complaint from the neighbors pretty quickly!
There are a huge amount of nuanced methods and specific tricks for establishing your own technique for playing quietly. Everyone has their own way of doing it. How you quieten your guitar may depend on the space you are in, your style of play and even the guitar you own.
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Acoustic guitars present more of a challenge for playing quietly. This may be the opposite of what you expect, but the way electric guitars are amplified gives you far more control of the volume. Acoustic guitars have more volume to start with, which we then need to try and take away, or at least reduce, using the methods we explore below.Palm Muting
The one way that requires no specific alterations to the guitar itself or the space you are in is to learn more about palm muting. In a lot of different genres such as funk, palm muting is a really important playing technique, but it can also be used to avoid annoying the neighbors.
Palm muting isn’t the most difficult thing to learn. The palm of your strumming hand should sit on its side against the strings. This softens the tone and means the strings do not ‘ring out’ for anywhere near as long. Imagine little ‘stabs’ of sound being played instead of long strums. You need to get the hang of allowing just enough tension on the strings for it to have an attack and some sound, without letting it ring out for a long time.
Ways To Make An Acoustic Guitar Quieter
Palm muting is great for acoustic or electric guitar, but there are more effective methods for playing electric guitar quietly, as explored later in this guide. Muting is a good technique to learn to open up a world of new effects and styles, so it is strongly recommended.Fingers over Picks
If you play with a pick or plectrum and have ever tried to practice without one, you may have noticed that there is a noticeable difference in the volume. A pick gives a firmer ‘pluck’ on the string which then gives a faster and louder attack to the sound and also means it rings out more. If you play with your fingers, you will naturally play a little softer and also the skin on your fingers will act as a bit of a dampener for the sound, resulting in a lower volume.
There’s nothing wrong with transitioning back to playing with a pick once you’re back in an environment where you can play a little louder. Playing in one style doesn’t mean that you’re committed. If anything, this will be enhancing your repertoire of skills.
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To know how to alter the volume of an acoustic guitar, it is important to think about how the guitar actually works. If you think about the body of the guitar, this is like a big reverb chamber. The soundhole is where the vibrations from the strings enter the body, reverberate and become louder before the sound reflects and projects around the room.
It is natural that making changes to the soundhole or body of the guitar change the way it projects and therefore makes it much quieter (if done right).Filling the Body
The body of a guitar is where the sound echoes and is projected from. Think of it as someone shouting loudly into a cave or an empty hall. Now imagine putting a pillow over this person’s mouth. Suddenly, the volume is greatly reduced as a result. The same sort of idea applies to filling the body of the guitar. Suddenly, it can’t reflect around and increase in volume. The sound level drops much more quickly.
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A pillow is actually one of the best ways to dampen the sound in this way when it comes to acoustic guitars too. If you are able to stuff the sound hole with a pillow, it means that the guitar’s volume will be significantly reduced.
If you’ve spent a significant amount of time with drummers, you may have seen this technique used on their kick drum before recording or performing. This can dampen the sound and change its qualities as well as making it quieter. This is because the chamber in which the sounds reverberate and ‘grow’ is now disturbed and doesn’t have the same impact.
Pillows aren’t always the easiest item to put into the sound hole, especially if they are larger. Try a smaller pillow or if you can’t, something else which is soft can work properly. Feed in a blanket, lots of paper towels or even try putting plush toys in there. You shouldn’t have to buy anything specifically for this. Just make sure whatever you put in there isn’t impacting upon the strings and stopping you from playing normally.
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The general rule for what will be effective is based on whether it is absorbent or not. Generally, if something will absorb water, it will absorb sound well.
This is the ‘stopping at source’ method of trying to quieten the guitar. The strings vibrating is where the sound of the guitar is generated. Think of an elastic band being plucked and the sound that this creates. If you then put your finger on that band it will quieten or stop making sound altogether.
By placing an item underneath the strings, you can have a similar impact on the sound. This means the strings do not vibrate as much and as a result, the sound is not as loud. There is a specific method of doing this.
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The item has to be placed on the strings as close as possible to the bridge. Along the fretboard or anywhere near the soundhole may make it very difficult to actually play the instrument. Next to the bridge (lower on the body than the soundhole) is the perfect space for it. So what are some suitable items?
People have tried all sorts of different things. Similarly to the soundhole materials, something soft and absorbent will probably do a decent job, but this might kill the sound altogether. Try an old t-shirt, a sponge, a piece of cardboard or packaging materials like polystyrene. It needs to be thick enough to wedge in there and to touch the strings in order to have the muting effect.
Combining this with some of the other methods such as filling the soundhole or covering it can have a drastic impact upon the volume.Feedback Buster
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The feedback buster is an invention to stop feedback from occuring in electro-acoustic guitars or acoustic guitars which have pickups attached. The sound reverberating in the body and this being recorded on the pickups can create a feedback loop.
Though it is invented to stop feedback issues, it works to quieten an acoustic guitar, too. A feedback buster effectively just sits over the soundhole, and in the process makes it much harder for the sound to be projected loudly. It basically just moves vibrations away from the soundhole where it would otherwise get ‘amplified’.
Feedback busters won’t make your guitar sound any nicer! They are just a tool to make the soundhole of your guitar more or less redundant. The tone may suffer, and it is harder to create dynamics in your playing, but this is just a temporary measure.
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Feedback busters are affordable, you can buy one here for super cheap at Amazon and are also really easy to attach and detach from the guitar. For some people, this is the favorite way of making the guitar quieter for those late night sessions.
The thickness of your strings is to do with how they are wound. A thicker would string will feel chunkier, and will also produce a heavier sound with more mid-range in it. Think of the sort of guitar sound you’d associate with chugging metal riffs. Thinner strings have more high-end in them, meaning they’re not quite as good for some chords and have more of a ‘shining’ tone. They’re good for soloing.
A big advantage of thinner strings is that they have a lower volume (generally speaking). Think about swapping out the strings you normally use for thinner strings. Even if this isn’t the exact sound you want when it comes to performing, it doesn’t change your technique. Think of thinner strings as a temporary compromise in order to allow for practice at unsociable hours. They feel a little different, but you’ll quickly be able to adjust to this.
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An added bonus is that thinner strings are easier to play for beginners. They don’t have the same level
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