Guitar: what is 'chugging a chord'?

Question:i hear this sometimes. i dont play i just listen. what happens when you "chug a chord"?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: i hear this sometimes. i dont play i just listen. what happens when you "chug a chord"?

Chug means to mute a chord but giving accents to the different beats. You are muting with your left hand and not with the right hand. All you do is to lift your fingers off the fret but keeping the chord position just the same.

Chugging is when you mute the strings a bit with the fat part of your strumming hand, and quickly hit down beats on two or three strings at once. It helps to have the drummer and bass locked into a similar feel. This sounds like a train "chugging" along.

Listen to Johnny Cash "Folsom Prison Blues" to get a sense, or listen to heavy metal like "Communication Breakdown" by Led Zeppelin. You hear this a lot in punk rock too.

heh. Chugging what again?

no, but seriously, you're probably just thinking of palm muting. palm of the picking hand pressed to the strings lightly while strumming a power chord. Press down a little harder at the end of what you want your note to be to stop the note.

I would not suggest listening to Johnny Cash for "chugging", but to the infamous palm-muting masterpiece at the beginning of Metallica's "For WHom the Bell Tolls". It's about, oh...30-45 seconds in, and before any singing.

The key is CRANKED distortion with your mids turned down and your lows and highs cranked, A.K.A "Scooped" e.q. Serious chunkage.