Daily Guitar Practice For Better Rhythm Guitar Playing
In this lesson, we will learn about daily guitar practice for better rhythm guitar playing. This will allow you to progress faster, build self-confidence, and stay focused on your journey to guitar greatness.
What you want to do is create what’s called a practice routine. You review the concepts and techniques you have learned and put them in chronological order. This type of application will give you the best results in the shortest amount of time.
Open Chords
The first thing you want to work on is your open chords. C D Em G, Am, etc. These are the foundation of your chord vocabulary and rhythm playing. Knowing that these chords are considered triads (3 notes chords) and knowing how to form and switch between them is the key.
Make sure you work on these daily. Work at forming them, switching between them, and understanding their placement in songs. These are the core fundamental principles of guitar playing. Especially playing rhythm guitar.
Strumming
Once you have your chords down, you then want to work at strumming them. This will help to develop your picking hand. Learn to strum down and count. 1 2 3 4. Four strums per chord is a great place to start
Then strum up and down. The count for this will be 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &. This will add more movement to your picking hand and create different rhythms. S down on the 1, and you strum up on the &. You also want to count on the process.
You then work on your triplets. This is where you tie three notes together. The count for this type of strum is 1 & uh. This will create an additional type of rhythm different from the other two.
With this strumming pattern, you pick down on the 1, up the &, and back up on the uh. You do this all together in one strum. This will give you more control over your strumming hand.
Arpeggiated picking
This is another type of picking that can help you get better at playing rhythm. Arpeggiated picking is when you pick the notes of the chords individually. This allows you to create a completely different sound than just strumming them.
Many great songs on the guitar use arpeggiated picking. This technique is as old as the instrument itself. You simply pick the strings in any order you choose while switching chords. I recommend you start picking downward, and then change it up from there. Practice skipping strings as well.
Notes within the chords
Once you know how to play your basic chords and bring them to life through arpeggiated picking and strumming. You want to look into the actual notes that make up the chords. Discover why is one called a major chord and one called a minor chord. What is the difference?
The difference is the notes the chords are made up of. The major chord is made up of the 1 3 5 of the key is comes out of. The minor chord is made up of the 1 b3 5 of the key it comes out of.
It is this information that is going to allow you to become a much better guitar player. It is going to allow you to unlock the mysteries of the guitar fretboard. Along with understanding guitar chord theory. Once you do, you can create hundreds of guitar chords.
Notes within a key
Once you get that figured out. You then want to learn about music keys. You have 12 notes to the music alphabet. These twelve notes are what make up all the popular music we hear on the radio.
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#.
Out of these 12 notes we take 7 to create a key. Like for instance the the key of G major. This is a very popular musical key that has hundreds of songs created from it. Being so, it would be a great idea to know these 7 notes and what we can do with them.
G A B C D E F#
Chords within a key
Once we have the 7 notes down, we can then look at chords that come out of those 7 notes. There are chords that we can create out of these 7 notes in each key. This is how we will learn songs as well as create our own.
In any musical key, there are 3 major chords, 3 minor chords and one diminished that can be created. The 1 4 5 make up major chords. The 2 3 6 make up minor chords, and the 7th makes a diminished chord. In the key of G major, the G C & D will be major, the A B & E will be minor and the F# will be diminished.
G C & D = Major chords
A B & E = minor chords
F# = diminished
Chord progressions
After we learn what chords are major and minor in a key, we can then create chord progressions. These are when we put a series of chords together in a specific order. Now that we know which ones are major and which ones are minor we can proceed to do this.
The most common progression in songs is the 1 4 5. Hundreds of songs are created with this progression. This would be a great place to start. If you were in the key of G major, these 3 chords would be G C & D. All major.
1 4 5 chord progression = G C & D
The second most common approach in songwriting is throwing in the minor 6th chord into the mix. This creates the 1 2 4 5 chord progression. Once again, in the key of G major, we would use E minor. Work with these chord progressions and see how they sound.
1 2 4 5 chord progression = G Em C & D
Learning songs
This would be a good time to learn a song or two. You now know the fundamental principles of playing guitar. That is if you’ve used this daily guitar practice. It can also help improve your ability to play guitar by ear. That is if you do it daily.
Look up songs you like. As you go through the 1 4 5 chord progression, you’ll hear songs. when you do, look them up and work at playing them. They are all going to use these techniques that I have taught you in this lesson.
Writing songs
Now, if you are ambitious, you can attempt to write your song using these techniques. You choose the 1 4 5 chord progression, add some words and a melody and you have a song. I mean, after all, if they can write a song using these three chords, why can’t you?
The best way to approach this would be to learn a few songs that have this progression and then write one of your own. This is a nice challenge for you and a good way to put all these concepts into application. Once you get the 1 4 5 down, try to add the minor 6th in there.
Keep learning
If you’d like to learn more about these lessons I recommend you check out the book I authored and self-published on Amazon. Learn To Play Rhythm Guitar.
Learn To Play Rhythm Guitar is a comprehensive training course. A step-by-step method book that is designed for anyone with the desire to learn. Even if you have no previous musical knowledge.
You will learn to master concepts and principles that will lead to building a solid musical foundation that all future learning can stand on. Even if you already play guitar, you can still learn new musical concepts from this course.
Have fun
The most important thing out of it all is to have fun. If you’re not having fun, you won’t stick with it. To create daily guitar practice routines, it has to be fun. You need to enjoy what you are doing. You need to look forward to picking up the guitar and learning how to play it.
In addition, if you purchase the book you will have my assistance if you have any questions or get stuck on a lesson. Just contact me and I will be happy to help at no additional charge. With me in your corner, you will be assured of guitar-playing success.
Thanks for reading and good luck with your guitar playing. If you follow the guidance of this lesson, you will see results that will take your playing to the next level.
Until our next lesson, take care.
Sincerely, Dwayne Jenkins
