Keeping in TIME ( a gude to better strumming ) - Part 1

Rhythm is the most important part of music. It keeps the moves the music along , glues the musicians together, and touches the listening down in their souls. Guitarist are 1/3 of what'a called the 'Rhythm Section' in a band. Along with the drummer and bass player they play the role that is the foundation of contemporary western music.




Here's how it works  (generally)

The drummer is the chief 'time-keeper"and sets the tempo for the music. The bassist accents what's called the 'downbeat' (beat 1 along with beat 3 of a 4/4 bar) and the guitarist accents the back-beat (beat 2 and 4 of the 4/4 bar). All together this sets the 'groove' or 'pocket' of the rhythmic pulse of popular music, and a good 'rhythm section' will be tight and consistent in this effort.

The beginning rhythm guitarist

I will generally teach about 4 - 6 simple strum pattern to all my student. These patterns usually cover all the basic guitar rhythms for folk, country, pop, rock and funk styles and get the student playing faithfully along to the actual recorded versions of the songs. Once the student gains confidence and consistency with these patterns, I will encourage their creation of new patterns based on adding or subtracting strums to these basic existing patterns. The result is trying to get the most out of the least, and encouraging the creative talents of the individual student rather than the memorization of countless patterns. An example would be; remove one strum from the basic folk pattern and it turns into the "Mumford and Sons" pattern used by all the modern alternative folk-rock bands these days.

The 'Quest' continues ...

The next step in the process is to begin to become proficient in choosing what the best strum pattern for a given song will be. Most songs you print off the internet or get from anthologies won't have a strum pattern included with the chords and if your guitar teacher isn't there to write one in, the task is yours to decide. Also, if your playing in a band you will have to choose what will work and sound best with what the other players are doing on their instruments.

The process isn't unlike adding salt or pepper to season your food. You'll have to step out and try what you think will be the appropriate pattern and learn from a bit of trial and error. Most of the time there isn't really a right or wrong rhythm anyway because there are so many ways to approach a song in the area of rhythm. Foe example, I could play a funk song in a straight ahead rhythm or a rock song in a funky way or pop song in a folky way. There is a lot of variety and cross pollination within modern music so it's not difficult.

So until 'part 2' (coming soon!) work on customizing those few patterns you're comfortable with and experiment with trying to play along with mp3s and recordings of the atrists and bands.