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Rhythm exercises

OskarF

New Student
Nov 11, 2019
41
33
I’ve been struggling with my rhythm and I wondering if anyone had any rhythm exercises that they wanted to share. Thanks in advance. 🙂🤘
What more exactly do you have trouble with? Personally i never used any specific exercises for rhythm, other than learning to play music and making sure i could play it perfectly in time.

Generally when practicing, i think it's important that (for the most part) you're playing at a tempo that is just slightly above your comfort zone, but that goes for anything you practice. You could maybe try practicing rhythm without the guitar? If i struggle with a specific rhythm, the guitar can be a distraction for me sometimes so i just tap my fingers or drum with my hands or something so i can focus 100% on the beat and forget about playing the notes as well.
 

Chris Johnston

Music Theory Bragger
  • Nov 11, 2019
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    North Ayrshire, Scotland
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    There are many different approaches that help your rhythm playing, however the one that seems to have helped me the most is doing this:

    1. Stick on a metronome
    2. Set the speed about 10% slower than you would consider slow.
    3 . Try and pick/strum on every click (1,2,3,4)
    4. Try and add in an extra strum/pick per click (1, and, 2, and , 3, and, 4, and) while making all the numbers down picks/strokes and all the 'and's as up picks/strokes.
    5. Try and add 4 picks per click (1,e,and,a, 2,e,and,a, 3,e,and,a, 4,e,and,a) - This time you would do downstroke for the numbers & the 'and's and upstrokes for the rest.

    Practicing this at a slow speed will calibrate your playing to a perfect sense of time, and will allow you to really visualise what's happening with each beat, while working on alternate picking/strumming. It will also force you to learn to hold back to anticipate the clicks, which will make your rhythm playing much tighter 😊

    Like Connor Mcgregor said 'Timing beats Speed' 🤟
     
    Last edited:
    Synner Endless Summer Collection

    William B.

    Hot Topic Tourer
  • Nov 11, 2019
    2,157
    1
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    I tried to get the gist of it. Mix things up and see what works for you. Like try an 8th note pattern into this and back as an example.
    Accidently edited out the part mentioning it's like a blues/jazz shuffle type thing. It's like a link in time.
    Had a few more but quickly realized that it could take long.

    It looks something like this on one string:
    xX-xX-xX-xX
    Reverse:
    Xx-Xx-Xx-Xx

    I think it may be good changing between sections in a song
    I don't know how to count this, guessing; A-1, A-2, A-3, A-4, or 1-A, 2-A, 3-A, 4-A,
     
    Last edited:
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