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Sheet music

The chords uses all strings but the 5th one, the A string, how do I strum strings skipping the A string?

TaylorSwiftFan5932
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John
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    Will someone explain why that 5th string can't be pressed down on the 2nd fret, making it easier to play, and stll sounding good? There's another M3 coming from the 2nd string open. – Tim Dec 21 '19 at 08:28
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    How do you play the all muted chord with all X noteheads? – piiperi Reinstate Monica Dec 21 '19 at 11:25
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    @piiperiReinstateMonica - by muting all the strings! Either by using fretting hand fingers loosely over the strings just where they were, or using the side of the palm on the strumming hand - not so easy. Using all barre chords, some players put a 'scrunchie' over the strings, fret 1 or 2, meaning they can play all chords above, but not touch strings at all with fretting hand for xxxxxx. – Tim Dec 21 '19 at 11:29
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    @Tim The question was for the OP. :) I meant, if muting one string is a problem, how about muting all strings... – piiperi Reinstate Monica Dec 21 '19 at 13:55
  • @Tim it might be a voicing of the G chord that the composer felt fit in with the underlying melody better without the b note on the bass end of the chord. I think the high b (open b string) is more prominent when you take the low b out of the voicing. Perhaps the higher b is part of the melody. In other words - I don't know but there might be a valid reason. – Rockin Cowboy Dec 22 '19 at 20:22
  • @RockinCowboy - without that 'valid reason' we're none the wiser! – Tim Dec 22 '19 at 20:26
  • The chord shown in the tab is one particular voicing of a G chord in first position. It might be used because the arranger or composer felt like that particular voicing sounded best with the underlying melody of the song. That voicing involves the muting of the A string with whichever finger you use to fret the low E string (by tilting it down just enough to mute the A string). There are at least 5 different voicings of a G chord in first position to choose from in a given situation. You can see them all here: (https://music.stackexchange.com/a/31061/16897) – Rockin Cowboy Dec 22 '19 at 20:29
  • @Tim agreed. Just an assumption. A possibility. Perhaps an opinion of the arranger. Might work just as well to play another voicing of the G chord. – Rockin Cowboy Dec 22 '19 at 20:31
  • @RockinCowboy - I wonder just how valid these finer points really are in the bigger picture, or whether they're just fancies, or even things done in ignorance. I really would like to know how valid they really are. – Tim Dec 22 '19 at 20:37
  • @Tim I am sure there are cases where it's just fancy. I am also sure (from personal experience) that there are many cases where one voicing either sounds better or works better than the others. I use different voicings of G major in different songs based on what elses is happening with the music when the chord is played (is there a baseline being played?, is the melody descending or ascending?, what melody notes are most prominent at the time the chord is being played?, etc). In fact, in some arrangements, I will use one voicing of G in one part of the song & a different one elsewhere. – Rockin Cowboy Dec 23 '19 at 22:35
  • @Tim I wanted to ask the community to weigh in on our discussion for the benefit of others who may wonder. So I just posted this question (https://music.stackexchange.com/q/93484/16897) – Rockin Cowboy Dec 23 '19 at 23:06

1 Answers1

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You don't skip the string. You strum all the strings and use the fretting hand to mute the string(s) that you don't want ringing.

In this specific case you can mute the 5th string with the same finger you are using to fret G (3rd fret 6th string). You press G like you'd normally do, and use the bottom part of your finger to mute the 5th string. If you position your finger correctly, you can press G and mute A with the same finger, while letting the other strings ring.

This way you can strum really hard and do stuff that you'd normally do only with open string positions. You can also do percussive stuff when muting all or many strings.

It's a very useful skill to have, and pretty much essential in some genres and styles. It's hard to describe with words, youtube has many videos on the subject with different approaches, like this one:

As you can see it's used a lot in funk, but it has uses everywhere. It's a rhythm guitar concept, so it's not the most popular one.

TaylorSwiftFan5932
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