Muting the strings you’re not playing is a big part of sounding clean. Sometimes discipline is what you hold back.

Restraint is half of sounding clean. What people hear is a mixture of the notes you play and the ones you stop, so the stopping is real work. Most of us practise adding and never practise subtracting, which is how extra effort can make something messier. Knowing what to leave out is a skill with no applause attached to it.

Find the place where you are adding when you should be cutting. Fewer words in the message, fewer items on the list, fewer ideas in the opening sentence. Take one thing out this week and see whether anything was really lost.