Eddie,

What Matt showed you is what we call a "pushed" chord with the carrat ( ^ ). One ^ pushes an 1/8 th and two ^^ are a 1/16 th. Some styles have the "pushes" in them already, not all, but some have them built in.

Silence = "rests"

You can use F5 to open the bar settings and set each instrument part there for each measure or beat of your song. You can also type them in, which is a much quicker entry method.

One dot (.) means rest. C.B,D will rest all instruments but the bass and drums.

Two dots (..) means shot. F..,C.. will give you a two beat shot of all instruments.

Three dots (...) means hold chord/sustain C... will hold that chord for all instruments.

If you see a letter after a chord and dot(s), C...B,D that tells the style to play a C chord, hold that chord (...) except for the (B)ass and (D)rums. The B,D will play normally while the other instruments sustain.

They can be typed in or use Alt-F5 for "chord settings" to set them up.