Dead Notes??

[antibiotic]

After reading lesson 4's theory part, I am now able to play songs by reading the standard notations. However I looked some guitar magazines the other day and I found that there are some notes that have Xs instead of note heads. How do I play those "dead notes"?

[Josh]

The X usually means to just deaden the string with your finger and pick it.

[StoneDragon]

Those x's can mean a number of different thing from notes that weren't meant to be played but were "caught" in the heat of the moment to intentional pick rakes and scrapes (I use that one a lot) to muted notes (right hand) to muted notes (left hand). It really depends on the piece of music that you are playing.

Two of the most useful ways of generating muted notes are to simply relax your left hand to the point where your fingers are still in position and still touching the string ( but not playing the note) and to actually flatten your left hand fingers out across the strings to keep them from ringing. Depending on what you're playing, they both can come in very handy.