Rhythm guitar is a REALLY important part of learning the guitar. This section of the site is going to cover various styles and techniques to play about with.

Rhythm Guitar Basics

Many of the very basic (and most important) elements of rhythm guitar are covered in the Beginners Course. Following all the examples in the course should give you a solid understanding of the technique of strumming and how to develop the correct movements. You can explore the ideas yourself and develop your rhythm skills, or you might like to check out my DVD shown below which covers some of the same patterns, but develops each idea more and gives you plenty of examples to play along with me and make sure you are solid in your groove!

As you may know I also have a DVD that teaches strumming from the most basic level and covers lots of stuff that you probably want to know! Worth checking out if you have problems with any of the basic elements of rhythm.

PR-007 • Really Useful Strumming Techniques (DVD) RUST is designed for anyone that struggles with rhythm guitar. It starts at the very beginning, explains the basic theory and focuses on eighth note rhythm patterns, ties, picking out the bass notes, the muted strum as well as whole heap of handy hints (on plectrums, using a metronome, muting unwanted strings etc.) to get your rhythm playing solid and tight. It covers 20 popular and useful patterns, and gives you a chance to play along with each one. I think this is my best DVD to date, and I hope you will like it too.

PR-008 • Really Useful Strumming Techniques II (DVD) This following DVD will be released late in 2009, and follows on from Part I - and explores 16th note strumming feels, accents, muting, ties, syncopation and rhythmic playing styles like funk.

 

Jimi Hendrix Style Rhythm PLaying

Jimi Hendrix was a fantasic rhythm guitar player. He blends rhythms with intricate lead fills into his own style which has been copied by many great players. These lessons will show you two starting points for you to either develop your own ideas from, or give you a head start if you are transcribing Hendrix songs. You will need to know you E and A shape berre chords before looking at this!

RH-010 • Hendrix Style Rhythm Guitar 1
No notes yet but you can see the video here.

RH-011 • Hendrix Style Rhythm Guitar 2
No notes yet, but check out the video and you should get it.

Funk Guitar Style

RH-021 • Basic Funk Chords
This lesson will teach you some basic funk chord grips that you will use for the following lessons. Check this out first so that you know what I am talking about for the future lessons.

RH-022 • Basic Funk Strumming
This lesson shows you basics of the funk 16th note strumming, lifting the chords to get those stylistic muted clicks and stresses the importance of keeping your hand moving!

RH-023 • Funk Grooves
This lesson puts the above lessons together a bit - shows you some ways of using the chords and rhythms together to get a groove.

RH-024 • More Funk Chords (coming soon)
This lesson takes you through some more advanced chords that you can use to get more melody into your funk grooves. Also used for making chord scales.

RH-025 • Sliding Funk Chords (coming soon)
In this last part for this series we look at sliding the chord shapes to get an authentic funk vibe - they are applied right away and now you should be making some wicked funk sounds! :)