This exercise is from the Core Skills section on Muting.

In this exercise we will play some rock chords in a sequence and rely on dead stops for rhythmic effect. This involves muting, so use your fretboard fingers to mute the chords as shown, but remember that you use your strumming hand to palm mute too.

To do that you will need to co-ordinate both hands together to mute the strings. Then you will get a complete dead stop. This just takes a little time and some practice. Watch the introduction video if you are unsure about this, we show dead stops being done there. Dead stops are worth knowing, as rhythmic stops are very common in guitar music.

Just one word of warning, don't put too much pressure on the strings when you mute them as this will cause sound. It's tempting to do that when playing heavier riffs just because the music may lead you to play more aggressively. But when it comes to muting, gently does it best!

Once you can do it, work on building speed but don't worry if you can't play it all as fast as the Normal Speed version...that will come with time.

The chord sequence here is:

G5 - F#5 - E5 (the '5' is just short for 'powerchord')

Notice that the Open Low E string of the last powerchord is muted using the 2nd finger - be careful not to fret that note, just lightly touch the string to mute it. This is done because there is no other finger already in place on the fretboard to mute - PLUS, besides palm muting, there is no other way to mute an open string!