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Learn Guitar Online – Easy As 1-2-3 the basics – rhythm

By Mike Hayes | January 14, 2010

So you’ve bought your guitar and ready to start you musical
journey, but where do you start? Without a doubt the only place
to start is at the ground floor; and in music the ground floor
means the “ground beat”!

Forget endless hours searching the net, days spent drooling over
expensive new gear at the music shop, hundreds of dollars down
the drain with music lessons if you don’t develop your rhythm
playing you might as well throw away your pick!

The beat, rhythm or groove is the first aspect of music that
humans respond to, followed by melody and lastly harmony.

The best place to start is to make yourself aware of your rhythm,
we all have it, it’s just some people have developed a greater
awareness of their groove.

Try this:

(a) put on a favorite song, notice how your foot will
automatically start tapping, and the cool thing is it’s always in
time with the music … at least until you start thinking about
it!

(b) next step is to make a simple shaker, a plastic soft drink
bottle half filled with rice will do the trick just fine.

(c) now with the music playing try tapping your foot and shaking
your shaker with your right hand (if you are right handed) try
this for a couple of sessions until you feel comfortable …for
some players this may take several weeks before they can do
everything independently … don’t worry take your time and work
at your own pace.

(d) next pick up your guitar and cover the stings with your left
hand, don’t press the strings all the way down to the fretboard,
we want to create a percussive sound like a snare drum without
any notes or chords sounding; now with the music playing tap your
foot and strum the strings with your right hand using the exact
same motion you used when you had the shaker in your hand.

If you have trouble with step (d) go back to step (c) and work at
that for a bit longer until your confidence grows.

This is the quickest way to improve your rhythm playing because
you are not trying to play impossible chord shapes or difficult
scale patterns you can focus 100% on your rhythm and as you do
more of this type of practice your awareness of your internal
groove will develop. We all come to the planet with it … we
just have to work out a way to get it out!

In a way we are approaching guitar playing from a percussionist’s
angle which is the best way to develop you groove. Remember there
is nothing in a guitar it is simply a tool for musical
expression, our first goal is to be able to project ourselves
rhythmically through the guitar.

And now I’d like to invite you to get free access to my “How To Remember 1,000 Songs” eCourse. You can download the course for free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com

You’ll learn about hit song templates, easy chords, simple scales, red hot rhythms, and successful practice strategies in text, audio and video.

From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar
System

Topics: Beginner Guitar Lesson, Guitar Tips, Learn And Master Guitar | No Comments »

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