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A device placed on the bridge or in the bell to soften and change the tone.
Appears in English parts as an instruction to fit or remove the device (mute on, mutes off, take mute), printed over the part, usually during rests. With mute or muted starts the effect; without mute, mute off or open cancels it.
Also spelled: mutes
A string mute clips onto the bridge and gives a veiled, distant tone; brass mutes in the bell range from the soft, rounded cup mute through the brighter, edgier straight mute to the nasal harmon. Name the mute for brass, and allow time for fitting and removal: a few seconds for strings, rather more for brass. A muted string section is a different colour from a quiet unmuted one, not just a softer version of it.
Mute is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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