The Building Blocks of Rhythm Playing
Rhythm is one of the most important skills a guitar player can develop, but many players overlook the importance of this in the early stages of their playing.
In this lesson you’re going to learn about the building blocks of rhythm and how you can start to create interesting strumming patterns.
To begin to understand rhythm as a concept you must first frame all this knowledge around the idea that the bar of music you’re about to play is 4 beats long. At the end of the fourth beat, you return to the first and the bar starts again.
Other bar lengths do exist, but for now, focus on a 4 beat bar.
Start with the idea of what is called a Whole Note. This is a note, or chord that lasts for the duration of the bar. Strum it on the 1 beat and let it ring for the full bar.
If you divide this note in half, you get a Half Note. This gives you two notes that each last for two beats.
If you split a half note, you get a Quarter Note. A quarter note gives you four notes in a bar, one on each beat.
If you want to now add more, you can’t add beats to the bar, so you have to split down the note length. If you split quarter notes, you get eighth notes. This gives you eighth notes in the bar of four beats, two on each beat. Count the additional in between hit as “&”.
1 & 3 & 3 & 4 &
You can go one step further and split the eighth notes down to sixteenth notes. This now gives you four notes per beat. You’re inserting another strum either side of the “&”. Count this with an “e” and an “a”.
1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
Now it’s time to put the rhythm in practise. When you learn songs and break down the rhythm, you will see combinations of these different note lengths split our across various beats. Here aer 5 examples to try out for yourself.
They are based around the chords E and A Major, but you can switch these chords out for whatever you want.
Rhythm 1
This rhythm is quarter notes on beats 1, 2 and 3 and eighth notes on beat 4.
Rhythm 2
This rhythm is eighth notes on beats 1 and 2 and quarter notes on beats 3 and 4.
Rhythm 3
This rhythm is quarter notes on beats 1 and 2, eighth notes on beat 3 and sixteenth notes on beat 4.
Rhythm 4
This rhythm is sixteenth notes on beats 1 and 2 and eighth notes on beats 3 and 4.
Rhythm 5
This rhythm is a half note on beat 1 (that hangs over beat 2), eighth notes on beat 3 and a quarter note on beat 4.
