WHAT IS A STRING DEADENER?
For anyone perplexed by this subject, here’s the deal: On a two-handed tapping instrument, when you’re touching the string to the fret to make it sound, then your amp is turned up so you can hear this note, and sooner or later you have to take your finger *off* the fret. On a regular guitar, when you do that, the open string is then going to ring. This particular note may or may not be in your current key, but the odds of this being a good note … are remote. However, if you weave some spongy stuff between the strings, down by the nut, then when you take your finger off that string, the string quickly goes quiet, which is what you want. Thus the humble string deadener, originally invented by Dave Bunker in the 1950s, as a part of one of his early patented instruments. It was later used by Emmett Chapman on his Chapman Stick instruments, and after a number of experiments, Mr. Chapman seems to have favored the use of Velcro. But try the shelf liner stuff. It works better than Velcro. SHAR
