how do u play this?

ok like in a lot of songs there is this thing that is marked and i can't figure out how to cuz i'm slow or something. how do you play the x's in something like this:


5555-x-x-x-66666-
5555-x-x-x-66666-
3333-x-x-x-44444-

the x is just telling you to mute the strings. you just loosen your grip on the strings with the fretting hand until it is muted. in your example you would mute those three strings with your fingers for that many counts.

or it could mean palm muting or P.M. depending on what kinda song it is. If its a grunge song or heavy metal rock, probably palm muting, but if its just say, old rock or somthing else like jazz, blues then its as canauck said.

Usualy the X's refers to fretting hand muting ... P.M. is usualy indicated below the tab line with specific notes.

If you use high gain distortion , you'd like to mute with all the four fingers and/or add palm muting too not to sound undesired harmonics. (it depends on your taste and the line you're playing)

they always (99.9%) point out palm-muting. the X is fretting hand muting. they well will have a note or maybe something like:

---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
pm................................

so there you go.