Rattles and adjustments

[stan haskins]

I was doing some recording last night with the Shen. The rattle has gotten incredibly irritating, so after about an hour I put a folded up washcloth between the tailpiece and the top. No more rattle! I guess that means the rattle is coming from my TP cable . . .

While there is a certain "muting " effect from the cloth, I found that in some ways, it evened out the tone (the A string is less wolfy, the open G not as abrasive). I did lose a little bit of volume, but the sound was better on the video, and it seemed like I was playing easier, too, by not needing to avoid rough-sounding notes.

Any thoughts? Does anybody intentionally mute their tailpiece?