How do you muffle the sound of a string instrument?

Answer 1

If you want to muffle your cymbals for drum practicing purposes:

Use a thin hard foam rubber and cut it to the size of your cymbal. Make a hole in the center and mount it on top of your cymbal. These can be bought from music stores too.

If you want to muffle a cymbal to shorten its shimmer after playing a note(also called choking):

Simply grab the cymbal directly after you hit it (with the same hand you hit it with) between your fore finger and thumb. Sort of like one would give a business card to someone..

If you want to muffle your cymbals because you think they are too loud:

Then you have the wrong cymbals for your style of music.

Answer 2

What makes a snare drum sound like it does is from the "snares" on the bottom of the drum. They're just basically metal strings strung tightly on the bottom head of the drum. To muffle the sound you can turn it off. which means you push the handle down so that the snares hang from the bottom, but then it doesn't really sound like a snare just a weird turned off drum.

Answer 3

The palm muting technique, which is mostly used in the Metal genre, consists of putting the outer edge of your right palm right where the strings end at the bridge and hitting the strings in order to get that chugged sound. The sound you get depends on how hard you press with your palm and how far away from the bridge your palm is. Experiment with the technique and practice it until you get the sound you like. Listen to Thrash Metal songs (for example early Metallica songs) for reference.

Answer 4

for brass instruments like trumpets and trombones use a mute.