Intermediate Rhythm Guitar 2 (Guitar Lesson IM-125) How to play IF Stage 2

Justin's Completely Free, Intermediate Guitar Course Lesson IM-124.
Stage 2, Lesson 4.

In this guitar lesson vid we check out some more cool rhythm strumming patterns - this time focused on using accent patterns to make your strumming some more interesting.

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-125-Rhythm16-2.php

This is part of Justin's Intermediate Guitar Method, Foundation. A series of lessons available free online!

http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

Full support at the justinguitar web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem.

And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships, no free ebook. Just tons of great lessons :)

To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

http://www.justinguitar.com

Have fun :)

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Hi, how're you doing?

Justin here.

Welcome to IM-125,

where we're checking out

some more rhythm guitar.

And in this lesson
we're going to be focusing

our attention on "Accents"

which is a really, really cool part

of 16th note
rhythm guitar playing.

Now, generally when you're
playing 16th notes

as you've been doing already.

You know that you're going to
keep your hand moving all the time

and that you're going to be playing

four movements per beat,

so like, you know

1 e & a,

2 e & a,

3 e & a,

4 e & a

. . .

that's really important, right?

So what we're looking at now

is the idea of an "Accent".

Now, in "accenting" I'm meaning

some are going to be
louder than others.

Now, if you're already playing
with your volume on 10

you're not going to be able
to add an accent.

So try and be aware of how hard

or softly you're playing.

See if you can play

and then accent
the first one of each beat.

So you'd be doing like:

LOUD soft soft soft, LOUD soft soft soft.

this kind of:

. . .

1 e & a,

2 e & a,

3 e & a,

4 e & a

. . .

Now, you should be ok with this, I hope.

You should also be
tapping your foot on the accents.

Now, one way to think of it is as well,

if you're struggling
with the accent,

is rather than
trying to make the beat 1 louder

you're trying to make
all of the other ones quieter.

And a really good exercise is

to just really hold your pick lightly

because that's a good way
of kind of adjusting your volume

is how hard or soft
you hold your pick.

So if you hold the pick as
lightly as you can

without dropping the thing

and trying just to get the motion.

. . .

Now I'm just holding all
the strings down

with my left hand,
my fretting hand,

they're just kind of,
all of them are on the strings.

. . .

and now :

1 e & a,

2 e & a,

3 e & a,

4 e & a

really trying to get that accent
on the beat

and the other ones really -

they're just touching,

there's nothing going on
too heavy there,

that's the important part

is to get that differentiation between

the really loud one and
the really soft one.

The bigger difference
you can learn to make the better.

You might not have a really loud accent

and the others quiet,
might sound a bit weird

but you wanna be able to,

you wanna be in control of
what you're doing

so it's worth practicing
that as well.

Now, accenting kind of occurs,

lots of times when you're
just playing regular patterns

some would be louder than others

that's just how it is.

And that kind of -

you should find that happens naturally,

you shouldn't be trying to think
about it too much

in just regular strumming

but what you'll find is

that you can actually use accents

to make up a rhythm groove.

The pattern we're gonna be checking out today

is a very, very commonly used one,

sounds really good, it's very useful,

lots of ways of kinda varying it

to fit whatever tune you're playing.

So, it's a little bit complicated

and that's the only kind of a down side.

I wanted to find a really, really good one

but the really, really good ones are generally

a little bit harder,

so don't be upset or freaked out

if you don't get this one straight away.

The trick here
is to really learn it slowly.

So let me just show it to you first.

I'm gonna use an open G chord

because, you know,
using an open chord

is a good thing when
you're practicing your rhythm

because you're not freaking out
over your barre

or your hands not getting sore

or whatever.

You can really concentrate
on your rhythm.

So, I'm gonna use a G chord.

Let me just gonna play you the pattern first,

something like this: 3, 4

. . .

There's lots of different ways of doing this

if you take that same pattern

and then mute them

. . .

you get a bit of that
Bo Diddley rhythm, you know

. . .

1 e & a,

2 e & a,

3 e & a,

& 4

very, very common
little rhythm pattern.

Very useful.

So, what we have to do is figure out

where the accents are

and they're every three.

Now I'm hoping that maybe some of you

have been counting
your 16th notes before,

so you're familiar at least

with the idea of counting like

1 e & a,

2 e & a,

3 e & a,

4 e & a.

Now, you'll notice on - if you look at the -

it's a really good idea to look at this, right?

So hopefully you're on the web site

and you're viewing the video
on the web page

the IM-125 web page

if you're not, maybe go to the site

so you can see this rhythm groove

written out there

and you'll see that
there's an accent above,

the accents kinda look like a little arrow thing,

is above the 1,

the 'a' that comes after 1,

the '&' after 2,

the 'e' after 3

and on beat 4.

So if I just go back to
muting again like this,

I'll just gonna play the accents now

so we got this:

1 e & 'a'

2 e '&' a

3 'e' & a

'4' e & a

1 e & 'a'

2 e '&' a

3 'e' & a

'4' e & a

And what I'm just doing is a really great way

for you to practise doing it

rather than trying to just do it
with the chord right away.

If you do it with the muted strings

keeps it quieter,
allows you to concentrate more

on the rhythmic aspect of the pattern

rather than thinking just about the notes.

I know you would be thinking
about the rhythm anyway

but as soon as the chord is there-

that muddles things up for the ear
or something.

But people definitely learn it quicker

if they've got their hand covering
the strings there.

So I'll say it again,

now if you can maybe join in with me

and we're just doing it at this speed

like: 1 e & a.

That's the speed that we're going for.

3, 4, here we go, so:

1 e & 'a'

2 e '&' a

3 'e' & a

'4' e & a

down,

up,

down,

up,

down,

1 e & 'a'

2 e '&' a

3 'e' & a

'4' e & a

Now, you did remember,
didn't you,

that if it's a beat

like a 1, 2, 3 or a 4

or an '&'

it's gonna be an down strum

and the 'e' and the 'a'

are going to be the
up strums.

So that's how we get this

'DOWN, up down,

UP, down, up,

DOWN, up, down,

UP, down, up,

DOWN, up, down, up'.

That's how we get the pattern.

Have a look at the -

Look at it visually and
do it really slowly.

It's also interesting to notice

that it's groups of three, so it's:

1, 2, 3

1, 2, 3

1, 2, 3

1, 2, 3

1, 2, 3, 4.

The little 4 at the end
just muddles things up a bit.

1, 2, 3

1, 2, 3

1, 2, 3

1, 2, 3

1, 2, 3, 4.

Down

Up

Down

Up

Down 2, 3, 4

Down

Up

Down

Up

Down 2, 3, 4

1 e & 'a'

2 e '&' a

3 'e' & a

'4' e & a

1 e & 'a'

2 e '&' a

3 'e' & a

'4' e & a

It's gonna be some practising here.

Like I said,
it's a little bit tricky this pattern

but it's such a good one
and it's so useful

that I wanted to do this one.

If you get really stuck
you can just kind of try

adding in a couple of the accents.

Maybe the first two and just go:

'1' e & a,

'2' e & a

3,

4.

'1' e

& 'a'

2,

3,

4.

You could do that,
that kind of works, you know

but I think the best playing here

is really just to do it really slowly
and get it right.

So even if you slowed it down to like

1 e & 'a'

2 e '&' a

3 'e' & a

'4' e & a

1 e & 'a'

2 e '&' a

3 'e' & a

'4' e & a

Doing it at that speed
and getting it right -

you can kinda see now I guess

the importance of being able to count

this '1 e & a, 2 e & a, 3 e & a, 4 e & a' thing.

It's a bit - takes a little bit of practice

like everything else, you know.

Practice saying it over and over again

is a good way to
get it under your tongue

and then when you come to say
a rhythm like this -

I can almost like

1 e & 'a', 2 e '&' a, 3 'e' & a, '4' e & a

1 e & 'a', 2 e '&' a, 3 'e' & a, '4' e & a

It is like a sort of funny rap thing

but you can get the feeling
of the rhythm right away

without even playing the instrument

just looking at it or whatever.

I can look at a rhythm and
vocalise the rhythm

and I kind of know how it goes.

So, take your time on this.

Do it really slow.
That's the trick.

Make sure you're tapping your foot
on the beat, too.

Some people find that a little bit weird

because your foot is kind of going

. . .

Sometimes it's a little bit of an odd-feeling

when you start.

If you're not used to -

if your foot's not on autopilot yet,
trying to keep your foot

. . .

Try to keep that foot
really consistently on the beat

while you're doing an accent pattern

which is all over the beat, then -

it's a little bit tricky.

But it just takes practice.

So, speaking of practice:
G chord, you and me

now, let's play it
through slowly a few times.

So, grab your guitar
if you haven't already

and find a nice open G chord

I will count you through
a few times.

We'll just do it for a minute
or something

just to get used to it

because it can be
kind of helpful to be playing it.

You know, if I'm doing
a private one-on-one lesson or whatever,

then I sit there and play it

with the student for a while.

So let's see if we can do that.

So hopefully you've got
your guitar out right now

and you're in tune and stuff,

hopefully I'm in tune - yes, good.

So, here we go:

So: 3 e & a, 4 e & a

1 e &
(plays)

a, 2 e
(plays)

& a, 3
(plays)

e & a,
(plays)

4 e & a
(plays)

1 e &
(plays)

a, 2 e
(plays)

& a, 3
(plays)

e & a,
(plays)

4 e & a
(plays)

1 e &

a, 2 e

& a, 3

e & a,

4 e & a

1 e &

a, 2 e

& a, 3

e & a,

4 e & a

1 e &

a, 2 e

& a, 3

e & a,

4 e & a

1 e &

a, 2 e

& a, 3

e & a,

4 e & a

1 e &

a, 2 e

& a, 3

e & a,

4 e & a

1 e &

a, 2 e

& a, 3

e & a,

4 e & a

1 e &

a, 2 e

& a, 3

e & a,

4 e & a

1 e & a,

2 e & a,

3 e & a,

4.

1 e & a,

2 e & a,

3 e & a,

4.

1 e & a,

2 e & a,

3 e & a,

4.

1 e & a,

2 e & a,

3 e & a,

4.

1 e & a,

2 e & a,

3 e & a,

4 e & a

. . .

Well, I'm hoping you've got that.

Just practice.

So, real slow.
Taking it through.

If you can't keep up with me

go and practice a little bit
by yourself

and then come back
to this little play-along bit

it's a really good thing
to be doing.

Do it with a metronome
if you can,

remember that the metronome
and your foot

should be tapping
or clicking and tapping

on 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Which is around the beat.

So try and get used to
that feeling

Because that's what makes
it sound cool.

Just as little hint as well:

If you wanna have a bit of fun

a good thing to do is to write out the

1 e & a, 2 e & a, 3 e & a, 4 e & a

and circle some of the notes

that you're gonna do accents,
and you can make up

your own accent pattern grooves.

Lots of fun.

Anyway, have fun with that.

Practice hard.

Apply it to some songs
as soon as you can.

And I'll see you for another lesson

some time very, very soon.

Take care, bye-bye.