What does an x on guitar tabs mean?

Question

D{-5-x-x-x-x-x-x------------------------...

A{-3-x-x-x-x-x-x-5-x-x-x-x-x-x-7-x-x-x...

E{---------------3-x-x-x-x-x-x-5-x-x-x...

It's alright/ To tell me/ What u think/ About me

Answer 1

An 'x' means to strum the string, but to keep your fingers resting on it so it makes a "chucka" sound. Hold the string enough to keep it muted, but not enough to fret it. Add a wah pedal and you've got a funk sound.... but I digress....

I think these tabs are wrong. The basic chord progression is right, but instead of doing the "chucka chucka" thing the chord should be palm-muted instead. Palm-muting is where you rest the edge of your picking hand against the bridge of the guitar, where the strings meet metal. You want to put just enough skin on them so that they dampen out the highs and give a nice fatty "chugga" sound.

So I would play the C5 power chord once normal, then then seven times palm-muted, then the G5 power chord once normal (aka open, un-muted, whatever) then seven times palm-muted, etc.

It is harder to play it this way, but it's correct. One of the more fun aspects of punk music, even pop punk music, is that while it's often not technically challenging, you've gotta be up on your rhythm - sometimes you've gotta blast out those chuggy power chords!

It is very difficult sometimes to tell when a note is being muted or if it's being palm-muted, especially if the quality of the song is bad or the song is eq'd weird or you don't know what to listen for. If you think you can hear a note, it's being palm-muted.

Unfortunately, tabs are not always accurate... keep that in mind!

Saul