palm mute
A guitar technique where the picking hand rests lightly on the strings near the bridge to dampen them.
In Depth
Palm muting produces a thick, chunky, percussive tone essential to rock, metal, punk, and country guitar. The degree of muting varies from a warm, slightly dampened sound to a tight, staccato chug. Palm-muted power chords form the rhythmic backbone of virtually all heavy music. Combined with distortion, palm muting creates the aggressive chugging sound that defines thrash and death metal rhythm guitar.
The rapid palm-muted alternate picking technique known as galloping was perfected by Iron Maiden's Steve Harris on bass and became the band's signature sound.