What would be the symbol for ultimate muting
Is there any symbol in music notation that instructs a complete, immediate sound muting (silencing) such as preventing a guitar strings resonating with muting techniques or releasing the sustain pedal of the piano per se?
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I think you should write a rest with perhaps some accent on the note beforehand preceding to indicate that your rest means business. Even if you were able to find some obscure symbol that represents that you mean an "aggressive" rest I'm not sure how it would help you; presumably the objective behind standardized music notation is to communicate what you mean to other musicians in an expedient fashion, and there is nothing understood more quickly and definitively in music than the rest.
Generally speaking, if one is playing an instrument where bleeding resonance is a problem, the question of how to interpret a rest is an issue of technique, not comprehension. A professional musician that sees a rest, in other words, will not be heard in any capacity for the duration of that rest.
In strings mostly, you can stop sound upon a note by using a technique called "muffling" and one can indicate it with that symbol:
This may apply to other instruments as well that mechanically do the same thing whether it is with a pedal, valve a key or with bare hands.
Another scenario this symbol has been used in is when choking a cymbal.
The mechanism is exactly the same.
In woodwinds this appears to be possible as well, as long as you understand your instrument and where the sound is coming from.
You can additionally write some text such as forte to stress on the requirement for the muffle to be "sharp" or "aggressive". Another way is to simply use a rest and when playing strings, the player is supposed to mute / muffle the sound for the duration of the rest.
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