A dead note is a short, percussive string sound with no clear sustained pitch. Here you make it by touching the strings with the fretting hand while the picking hand strums them. This works with either a right-handed or left-handed guitar setup.
Read the X marks
Each vertical stack of X marks represents one strum across all six muted strings. There are eight stacks, so the image shows eight dead-note strums. An X replaces a fret number here: strike that string while it is muted.
The tab has no note lengths, strumming directions or tempo. Use the tablature guide if the six string lines are unfamiliar.
Touch the strings without fretting them
Lay several fretting-hand fingers lightly across the strings. Keep contact with the strings without pressing them down onto the frets, then make a gentle strum with the picking hand.
The photograph shows several fingers spread across the string courses. Use it as a guide to covering the strings; the useful check is the sound. You want a brief muted attack. If a clear fretted note rings out, reduce the fretting pressure. If an open string rings, check that a finger is touching it.
You can also stop a fretted chord by releasing its pressure while keeping the fingers in contact with the strings. This is a different action from lifting the hand completely clear, which can leave open strings sounding.
Practise eight even strums
- Make light fretting-hand contact across all six strings and check them one at a time.
- Count “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and”. Use a downstroke on each number and an upstroke on each “and” for eight evenly spaced muted strums.
- Pause, reset the hand and repeat. Keep the count even while checking that no open or fretted note keeps ringing.
That rhythm is a practice choice, supplied separately from the image. For a pitched sound with a shorter sustain, try palm muting. When playing power chords, fretting-hand contact can also help silence strings outside the chord.
Audio example
Further reading: Arobas Music’s dead-note notation and fretting-hand dead-note effect.