Somewhere between "playing a note" and "committing gentle violence against your own guitar" lives palm muting — the technique where you rest the side of your picking hand on the strings and choke them just enough to turn a ringing chord into a tight, percussive "chug." It is the sound of basically every riff that ever made a teenager nod approvingly in a bedroom mirror.
This is Riff #3, a short study built entirely around that chug. No shredding, no fifteen-finger stretches — just your right hand learning where to sit so the strings stop singing and start punching. Palm muting done well is the difference between a riff that sounds like a demo and one that sounds like it means business.
How palm muting actually works
Rest the fleshy edge of your picking hand lightly on the strings right where they cross the bridge saddles. Too far forward and the notes die completely (that is a dead palm mute, useful but not what we want here); too far back and the mute vanishes and the strings ring open again. The sweet spot is a millimetre-wide neighbourhood right on the saddles where the note still speaks but comes out short, thick and punchy. The concrete takeaway: don't press with your fingers, park your palm — the pressure comes from the weight of your hand resting, not from squeezing.
Once that spot is under your palm, everything else is rhythm. Keep your down-picks even, let the muted eighths breathe, and you'll feel the riff turn from mush into a machine. It's the exact same engine that powers a thrash metal riff and the snarky verse of Just A Girl — same hand, different attitude.
Warning: mastering the chug is a gateway drug, and you will absolutely start palm muting the theme tune to everything you hear. If you want the exact PDF and Guitar Pro file for this one — plus a place to fund my ongoing string-strangling habit — I'm on Patreon.