Page 18 - Guitar Book

Guitar Rhythms

Now we know what to do with the left hand, lets see what we can make the
right hand do. So far we have just strummed downwards once every time we
see a chord. Now we will try to learn a bit about rhythms to try to make our
songs a little more interesting.

Music is written using lots of lines and symbols. It’s a actually a kind of
language. I’m not going to get too technical with you because we don’t really
need to at this point. What I do need to share with you is how music is timed.

I’m sure everybody listens to the beat of music which is normally provided by
very noisy people commonly known as drummers. The drums give the timing
of the music which synchronises everybody. It also determines the rhythm of
the music. This is made more melodic by guitars, keyboards etc.

As guitarists we can follow rhythms by looking at the music. Here’s a piece of
written music:

BARS

The lines that are indicated as bars, are what give us the timing. In each bar
there are a number of beats. That is actually stated at the start of the piece as
4/4, meaning 4 beats to the bar which is a very common time signature. In
other words we are going to count 1 2 3 4 per bar. Now if we strum down and
up on the strings as we count i.e. Down up 1 down up 2 down up 3 down up 4
then we should hear a basic rhythm.

Rhythms and patterns differ from song to song and it is a good idea to try to
listen to how they are structured. Try to follow and copy them. One of the
basic forms of rhythms is what is called 12 Bar Blues. It is called this because
there are 12 bars in it. With that in mind lets set up a basic 12 bar blues
rhythm in the key of A.

I’m not going to put the music lines in, just the bars. Notice when the chords
change. Remember to strum down and up 4 times per bar.

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