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Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Rhythm Guitar Basics
As cool as lead guitar playing is, it's just as important to spend time working on your rhythm guitar chops. If you can find the right guitar groove for any band or session work, you will be a sought after musician. Plus learning how to blend with other musicians and knowing when it's your turn to shine are two of the most important things every guitarist can learn when performing. I put together some information to help your rhythm guitar playing, from rock to jazz guitar styles.
Rhythm and lead guitarist
Rhythm guitar can be reached by practicing chords, chord progressions, and perfecting your rhythm playing. A metronome is a vital tool to build this skill, but even more important is the ability to listen. Rhythm guitar is heavily influenced by the music happening around you. For the basics of rhythm playing, I found this introduction at http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/lessons/for_beginners/beginner_lesson_v_the_basics.html.
Hello everyone!
How is practice going? I hope you are having as much fun learning as I am writing it! I will be writing one more after this, bringing this series to an end. However, this just means we will be moving on to some really fun stuff. I am really excited!
Well there I go talking too much... let’s move on!
I) Before we begin...
In my last lesson I discussed barre chords. So, were there any issues? Questions? Comments? I know that these chords can be difficult at first, but like I have said before, the more you practice the better you will become.
When I first show a student a barre chord I get the same look and frustration. I was the same way when I first learned “Stairway to Heaven”. I was like “You want me to what??”.
This is why I always start slow and use only two stings at a time. Remember the following tips and facts which should put your mind at ease:
i) You have new hands. Keep in mind, you are applying pressure onto steel, nickel or brass strings. Your hands and fingers will toughen up.
ii) We were all there once! Every musician started somewhere and worked at it until they mastered their craft.
iii) Each day you are getting closer to achieving your goal.
iv) Take your time and go slow
If you haven’t noticed already, I do repeat myself. There are some topics worth talking about over and over and over and over. . . You get the point.
II) Your Metronome is your best friend
In my guitar playing career I have gone through three metronomes. Nothing fancy, just basic Qwik Time metronomes. I also have two drum machines and a Korg workstation with hundreds of rhythms. Actually the Korg is my wife’s.
There are many kinds of metronomes; some with built in tuners, some that are stand alone, some for your android or smart phone. Just pick one! ( I honestly do not like the metronomes for phones ). As long as it clicks you away into another plane of existence, then you are golden!
Why am I stressing this point over and over????? Rhythm and time are very important in music! I stress this to every beginner to develop good habits. As I write this, I am staring at my old friend the Metronome and his side kick, Mr. Stop Watch. They are always ready to go at any moment.
Stop watch??? I’m sure you are now wondering why I have this and if you need one. Well, I have one to time every thing I practice and no, you do not need one. Any clock with a second hand will do just fine.
Okay, enough of that. . .
Rhythm guitarists on stage
III) Strumming
I have debated on this topic for some time now. How can I explain this technique without visual aide? I have talked about it a little in previous articles, but let’s go more in depth.
Let me introduce a new word; DYNAMICS! For the purpose of this lesson I will keep it really, really simple. Dynamic: soft, hard, loud and quiet. Simple right? Now let’s apply this to guitar playing.
Take a deep breath and relax. Strumming is about grace and finesse. Your strumming arm, wrist and shoulders should be loose. I know that if you have never done this before you are most likely thinking that it is going to sound horrible. Nonsense!!!! Like Obi-wan said, “You are taking your first steps into a larger world.”.
Pick a chord, any chord, just one. Angle your pick so that it glides across the strings. Now strum that chord. I am sure your first strum was down. Try going up, angling your pick the other way. Now strum up, down, up, down, up, down. See how easy that was? Before you start critiquing yourself on how silly that sounded, I am just easing you into a comfort zone.
Let’s try another exercise.
We will do the same strum pattern; up, down, up, down, up, down...however this time I want you to start off playing soft and quiet gradually playing harder and louder, then go back to soft.
Ready for more? This time we are going to play something a little more practical, but first another awesome exercise that will make you feel silly, but warm and happy inside.
Find a surface to tap on. It could be a table, your leg, your guitar, anything. Start tapping your hand on the surface of your choice and count to four. However on the one, it should be harder.
i) Tapping Exercise
Tap Tap Tap Tap
1 2 3 4
Hard soft soft soft
Did that make sense? I hope so.
Pick a chord and apply this exercise to your playing. Down, up, down, up. Of course counting and accenting the “one”. Your strumming hand is not only a dynamic control, it creates the rhythm in your song.
See where I’m going?
Now it’s your turn. I am giving you an assignment for the week.
i) Come up with a rhythm using one chord. Experiment with your strumming using techniques I talked about here.
ii) Youtube some vids of your favorite acoustic player and watch how they strum. Mimic them.
IV) Conclusion
This was a huge topic to write about as well as you, the student, had to learn. If you follow the lesson and practice you should have no problem. Here are some tips to remember:
In this classic Guitar World lesson, Avenged Sevenfold guitarists Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance show you their most trusted dual-guitar techniques. This week: developing your rhythm guitar skills.
ZACKY VENGEANCE: I’ve been influenced by all kinds of different music. As primarily a rhythm player, I’ve come to understand the importance of rhythm guitar. Some players don’t appreciate how important rhythm guitar is and how a good rhythm guitarist will hold everything together. I’ve had the chance to watch Metallica’s James Hetfield from the side of the stage night after night, listening to his monitors, and his playing is so perfect. Slash is an amazing lead guitarist, but when you listen to his rhythm playing you can hear how he pulls everything together with such a great feel, which is the most important thing.
Rhythm guitar is such an important aspect of playing in any band, because good rhythm will mesh everything together. That’s what we try to do in Avenged Sevenfold.
SYNYSTER GATES: When I joined this band, I couldn’t play rhythm guitar worth a shit! I had to practice rhythm guitar, and it was a totally different discipline from soloing; when you’re used to noodling all the time, it’s hard to get in the mindset of working strictly on rhythm. Zacky and I helped each other by mixing and matching elements of our playing styles. In the process, we kind of became hybrids of one another. We started listening to the groove much more, instead of thinking like a bunch of snobby guitar geeks.
VENGEANCE: A great way to get your rhythm playing together is to work with a drummer, preferably someone that has a good groove and plays solidly in time.
GATES: Playing with a good drummer, like the Rev, makes our lives so much easier. It’s impossible to play with a bad drummer. We’ve been playing with the Rev practically our whole lives, and he’s always had a great groove. Even when he was developing his chops, his groove was always there. That made it easy for us to lay down our parts, because we didn’t have to worry that we would be out of time. The groove has always felt natural for us because he’s so tight.
Plus, playing with a great drummer provides for a much more enjoyable experience. We can lay back and play a great show for ourselves and our fans, without having to look back at the dickhead that keeps ruining the song.
Rhythm guitarist on stage
VENGEANCE: The most important aspect of rhythm guitar is to have control of the strumming hand. Palm muting [resting the edge of the pick-hand palm across the strings at the bridge] is a very important part of my rhythm guitar style. You can do so much with just the two lowest strings, like this [FIGURE 1]: using drop-D tuning [the sixth string is tuned down one whole step from E to D], I’m using the open low D as a palm-muted pedal tone while playing a D minor-type melody on the A string. I’m using all downstrokes, and the palm-muted sixth string provides a percussive element This is a simple riff, and it’s a good one to use to build up speed, strength and stamina with the pick hand.
The goal is to tighten up the rhythm of the downstrokes. This exercise [FIGURE 2] forces you to work on playing evenly picked, palm-muted eighth notes on the sixth string, alternating with a melodic line on the fifth string. Be sure to use all four fret-hand fingers when playing this riff so you can build up the strength and independence you’ll need to shred like Synyster does.
When I first started to play, I used downstrokes all the time—very punk rock. It wasn’t until I started working with Synyster that I began to get my alternate picking together. I recommend alternate picking in order to build up speed, but being able to use downpicking for fast rhythm parts is essential, too. Working on both techniques will help develop speed with your palm-muting technique, so you’ll be able to play something like this [FIGURE 3] fast and in time with the drummer.
Here’s another good example of a palm-muted rhythm part that should lock in nicely with the drums [FIGURE 4]. Switching between muting and not muting in this way will make the part groove better and sound more interesting, too.
GATES: A lot of metal rhythm guitar stuff is like this [FIGURE 5]. Precise picking and palm-muting gives the part the edge that it needs to be effective. When practicing, it’s great to break a part down into its different elements, start slowly and then try to build up the speed until you’re playing as fast as you possibly can.
I think it’s beneficial to practice with a metronome or drum machine in order to strengthen your sense of time. It will help your concept of time and improve your feel. Plus, it will tighten up your playing right away. It’s not like it takes years of work with a metronome to improve your time. You just need to be aware of it.
VENGEANCE: Another good approach is to pick up the tablature for a song you like, figure it out and play along with the record. You’ll start to develop the characteristics of the players that you like. If you do that with enough bands, over time you’ll develop a great repertoire from which you can form your own playing style.
GATES: I’m a big fan of doing things that will help you find new ways to listen, and transcribing is one of the best ways to accomplish this. Using existing transcriptions from magazines is great, but I think it’s also important to try to learn songs completely by ear.
When you think you’ve got it, go buy the tab and check yourself against it.
PLAYING UNISON RIFFS WITH DRUMS
GATES: We have a lot of riffs that are rhythmically doubled by the drums. After we’ve written the parts, we’ll present them to the Rev and let him go. A drummer of his caliber will usually lay down the right thing. Then we’ll jam out the parts and develop the arrangement from there.
VENGEANCE: Everyone in the band writes, and our drummer has written stuff like this [FIGURE 6]. It’s pretty straightforward, but what makes it cool is the beat he chose to play behind it. He makes the riff, and the song, sound exciting by the part he plays in sync with it, which is an essential part of what makes our band work effectively. That was a riff we might have thrown away if the Rev hadn’t had such a great vision for it.
Modular Phonetic Rhythm represents a significant advance in the teaching and application of rhythm. Eliminating many inefficient aspects of rhythm education, Modular Phonetic Rhythm streamlines the traditional educational approach, resulting in a reflexive reaction to rhythm.
Jazz guitarists have never had a way to organize the subject of rhythm in a way that would systematically benefit their solos and their comping. Modular Phonetic Rhythm offers a solution.
The concept of rhythm is simple. It’s the duration of a note, a chord or a pattern. Rhythm is integrated into every facet of music. A melody is a sequence of pitches with rhythm. A chord progression is a sequence of chords with rhythm. Rhythm impacts Melody, Harmony and even Lyrics. It’s also a subject in and of itself. Rhythm is so intuitive, that it’s often overlooked as an independent topic of study.
The difficulty in the study of rhythm has always been its abstract nature – and its mathematical approach. Rhythm has traditionally been taught as a function of math, particularly fractions. Though accurate, this approach has missed one of the most fundamental facts of rhythm. Rhythm is a sonic language and is, as such, phonetic not mathematical in nature. The average student exposed to the math orientation of rhythm has rarely absorbed the essence of rhythm. He or she rarely becomes proficient at sight reading or using rhythm effectively. This often remains a lifetime barrier to the developing musician.
Though rhythm can be explained in mathematical terms, this approach does not give you a practical command of the sounds of the rhythms. Rhythm is a series of sounds! How can these sounds be organized?
“The Modular Phonetic Rhythm represents a fresh and innovative approach that helps bring the abstract into focus, examining the core of the real, linguistically aligned processes actually involved in reading, understanding, interpreting, and executing rhythm.”
Arthur Bernstein, Head of Music Department, Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts
This approach to rhythm is based on the concept of Modular Phonetics. Modular refers to the interchangeability of rhythm syllables and Phonetics refers to the sound of the rhythm syllables. Phonics has always been the key to sound in language. Without phonics, we could not pronounce words. We could not hear the sound of the words. Without Modular Phonetics, we can not hear the sound of rhythm. Without the sound of rhythm, it is difficult to use.
There is a strong correlation between the ability to spell and strong fundamentals in phonics. Phonetic skills allow us to “sound out” words, even words that we’ve never seen before! We understand the principle of sound as it applies to phonetic combinations. The “sight” of the letter combination triggers a reflexive “sound” reaction. If rhythm could be broken down into a system of phonetic units similar to the syllables of language, then rhythm would become an easily recognized and applied aural language.
To illustrate, take the word umbrella. This word could be expressed as 8 letters or as 3 syllables. Treating the word as 8 letters is similar to traditional rhythm teaching. A rhythm pattern could be described as a note lasting one half beat followed by a note lasting one beat followed by a note lasting one half beat. The “sound” of the rhythm is not part of this equation. But using the syllable parallel (umbrella has 3 syllables), the rhythm can be grouped into a phonetic syllable that does have a sound. Now, rhythm can be reproduced in the preferable “eye-ear-hand reflex” – the eye sees it – the ear hears it – the hands execute it! Modular Phonetic Rhythm is based on 24 basic rhythm syllables. These rhythm syllables vary in length from 1 note to 6 notes and from 1 beat to 4 beats. The system is divided into 4 levels based on the subdivision of the beat. Level I does not subdivide the beat. This is the level in which all notes are struck only on the downbeat. Level II divides the beat into 2 parts. Level III divides the beat into 3 parts. Level IV divides the beat into 4 parts. The levels do not express progressive difficulty, just progressive subdivisions of the beat.
As you begin to use this material, you will find an expansive, new vocabulary which you can then apply directly to your jazz guitar improvisation, your composition and to your accompaniment.
Rhythm guitar has an important role and any musical situation, from accompanying your own voice to performing with a band on stage. If a guitarist learns how to blend with a group and understand the dynamics of the song, he or she will always have a gig.
I hope you found this information useful for your own guitar playing. I encourage any and all feedback you may have. I'm always putting new guitar information out at Mike's Guitar Talk, so make sure you come back for more.
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