To play on beat is a critical element of sounding good on
the guitar. Unfortunately it is elusive to many beginners. In
this lesson I'm going to show you a step-by-step approach
to develop rhythm, (in other words play on beat) without
struggle. You will need to do a bit of work upfront but it will
pay many times over. This is the course I wish I had when
I rst started learning guitar.
What Is Beat?
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The beat is the pulse of the music. It's what you
experience when you tap your foot to a song. Almost all
popular music has a steady beat throughout the entire
song. It might be dif cult to identify it with your mind
because there's a lot of other elements going on, but you
can almost always feel it.
When you play a song by yourself on the guitar you would
need to provide the beat yourself. You can either do that
internally or by tapping your foot. When you play with
someone else like a drummer, another guitar player or
recorded drum track you would want to play together or in
sync. In other words you would play in time with the same
beat as them.
Let me start by pointing out that no one ever plays exactly
with the beat. We are always just a little bit off. Otherwise
we would sound like a machine. The point is to play close
enough to the beat so it sounds good.
If you play too far off the beat with someone else it begins
to sound bad. You can hear the sound not lining up. When
playing by yourself it sounds like the song is either rushing
if you play too fast or dragging if you start slowing down.
In this lesson on “how to develop rhythm” you are going to
work on your ability to play on beat and develop rock solid
rhythm. Another way to say this is you will be able to play
in sync with the beat either provided by yourself or
someone else.
Using A Metronome
A metronome is a great tool for developing rhythm. It
enables you to start at any speed that is comfortable for
you and it's usually very clear where the beat is. There are
even metronomes that have a function that allows you to
hear a different sound on the “one” of each beat in a
measure.
When using a metronome for practice it’s fairly easy to
measure your progress by using the numbers on the
metronome. I usually recommend students increase the
speed in increments of 4 bpm (beats per minute).
Understand that the metronome is not a solution to all
timing problems but only a tool. It's helpful to practice
without a metronome to you get in touch with your own
inner pulse as well.
Using A Drumbeat
It's a little more fun to practice timing with the drumbeat. I
particularly like it if you plan on playing with other people
because it really is more realistic to what you will hear in a
band setting. Course it sounds more musical as well.
As a FREE GIFT I've included a few drumbeats ( below)
like the ones I'm using in the video for you to download
and use for yourself. Unfortunately you won't have as
many options to change speed as you would with the
metronome. You may want to use both.
My 4 Step Slam Dunk
Process To Develop
Rhythm - Step One
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Most popular music has four beats per measure. That
means you can count one – two – three – four throughout
the song. There tends to be a little extra emphasis or push
on the rst beat. In this rst exercise you'll practice playing
a chord just on the rst beat. This is often called in music
playing on the one.
In this exercise you count one – two – three – four. Every
time you count one you play the chord.
Step Two - Play On Beat
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Now play the same exercise but play the chord on every
beat. This also means you'll play for chords in each
measure.
If use get off the beat you can usually tell if you hear the
drum or metronome sound and it's not together with your
guitar playing. When this happens it's best to stop, start
counting, and then joined in again on the rst beat or the
"one".
Step Three -Add Guitar
Strum
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Now let's add the Basic Down-Up Strum.
The down up strum takes up for accounts or beats. You
will start a new strum pattern on the one or rst beat.
Play slowly along with the drum pattern or metronome until
you can go for about two minutes without getting off. Then
start increasing the speed. Again if you nd yourself
getting ahead or behind just stop and begin counting
again.
Step Four - Changing
Chords
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The next step is to change chords on the one or rst beat.
Will use the D chord and the A7 chord for this exercise,
but you could use any two chords that you want to
practice. If you are not con dent with changing between
the chords you may want to practice the chords a little bit
before you start this exercise. I would recommend a
simple chord changing exercise so that you're not
concentrating on the changing of chords but rather on the
beat.