Intermediate Rhythm Guitar 4: Percussive Hit (Guitar Lesson IM-145) How to play IF Stage 4

Justin's Completely Free, Intermediate Guitar Course Lesson IM-145.
Stage 4, Lesson 5.

This guitar lesson looks at using a muted hit on the strings to add a percussive element to your rhythm guitar.

Find the related course notes on the following link:
http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-145-Rhythm16-4.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.

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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

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Have fun :)

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Hi, how're you doing?
Justin here.

Welcome to IM-145,

where we're going to be checking out
how to do a snare drum hit

and add a bit of percussive element
to your rhythm guitar.

Now the snare drum is normally played
on beats 2 and 4,

and if you'll excuse my really rubbish beat-boxing,

a kind of real basic drum groove goes like:

. . .

and it's the little "ka!"
that we're gonna try and emulate

as part of our rhythm guitar.

Now if I play it for you,
it sounds like this:

. . .

And you can hear
it really kind of brings a bit of life

and a bit of groove into your rhythm guitar.

If I play it first,
but without the little "chuck"

. . .

It's fine,

nothing wrong with that

. . .

But as soon as you bring that in

. . .

you'll find that all of your mates
are tapping their feet

and clapping their hands
in no time.

Really good if you're doing
an acoustic guitar thing

at a party or at a barbeque,

you'll really find that it makes
all of the difference

between a regular strumming pattern

and a bit of this in it.

It really moves things along really well.

Now the most important thing here

is that you get the technique right.

And I've seen a couple of people explain it by

kind of relaxing your hand on the neck
and hitting the strings,

which kind of works, but it doesn't then work
for open chords

and a lot of the times,

if you're in that kind of party
acoustic guitar thing,

you're going to be using open chords.

So it's really important
that you learn how to perform this

without having any hand
on the guitar at all

other than your picking hand.

So you can do this snare drum hit like this:

. . .

And it's important too to realize
that there are actually two elements.

There's two things going on here, which

when I'm doing it sounds just like one motion

because I am using just one movement.

But the two parts are:

First of all the hand hitting on the strings,

and you get the strings hitting on the wire frets

You get this kind of metallic crunching sound.

So that's kinda the first part.

And the second part
is once the hand is on the strings,

the pick plays through the strings,

and you get a little bit of a "thud" there.

So when you're practicing it,

you have to learn it
by doing it in two motions:

Hand, pick. Hand, pick.
Hand, pick. Hand, pick.

And then, it becomes one motion.

And it's really the sound of those two things
happening at the same time

that gives it that really strong
kind of snare drum-like sound.

So, let's have a bit of look at a close up at this

because it's quite an interesting technique,

and if you don't get it exactly right
it's frustrating.

OK, let's look at these two motions.

So the first one, it's the outside part
of your hand,

after your little finger,

-- so that kind of the outer palm part --

that's landing on the strings.

And it has to cover all six strings.

It's really important that it lands firmly
on those six strings,

it should be, I don't know,
3 or 4 inches away from the bridge.

So somewhere kind of at the back end
of the sound hole is where it should be landing.

And it's important that you realize
that it lands from above

because it's part of a strum, really.

It's that strumming motion, so

practice, first of all,
just moving your hand from above,

falling down,
so it's almost like part of a strum,

and then it rolls out
and it should just be falling like that

with the outside part of your palm.

So try and get used to that,
first of all, the motion.

Now you can hear already
the strings hitting against the frets.

That's the noise.
They're just up here somewhere.

The strings are hitting the frets.

And you get a bit of that click noise.

So that's the first thing
you should be trying to work on.

It's just trying to get that hit
to come down like that onto the strings.

Making sure it's not too noisy and
there's not too many strings ringing out.

Sometimes my little finger
is hitting on the finger board there.

I can do it deliberately if I want.

That's not a bad thing,
it just adds to the click sound,

so don't worry if you do a little bit of that,
it's not really the point,

but it doesn't matter
if it happens a little bit.

Now I'm making my hand go out this way

a little bit more than I probably should,
just to show you,

so normally it's staying
a little bit squarer than that,

and you can see now that my pick hand
is ready to hit the strings.

And, of course, now what's happening is

the hand is going on
and then the pick is roughly at the top and:

it picks a few of the strings.

It's doesn't have to pick like all of them,

but probably the first four,
the thickest four strings.

Something like that.

Four or five, it doesn't really matter. So,

try and get used to now :
hit, strum. Hit, strum.

And practice just getting that motion,

again this hand is not doing anything,
so making sure

because if you cover it like that
you can get away with

not doing any palm muting,
just strumming.

So, really, you want this hand
not touching the guitar and:

Mute, strum. Hit, strum.
Hit, strum. Hit, strum.

And eventually, you'll find that you can:

hit-strum, hit-strum
and that, then, it's the point.

Now, it isn't something
that's gonna get closer and closer

and then suddenly you'll get it.

You practice going:
hit, strum. Hit, strum.

Once you feel confident
that you're doing that really well,

just have a go at
trying to throw the whole thing together.

And that's when you get really good.

And it does sound a little -- well, QUITE A LOT --
like a snare drum.

. . .

Next, we have to incorporate it
into some rhythm guitar patterns.

The next thing we're gonna do

is incorporate that now
into a rhythm guitar pattern.

And probably the easiest one
to get going with

is to start off with a straight-eight pattern.

So if you remember back to our basic rhythm guitar,

we had one-and two-and three-and four-and,

using down-up, down-up,
down-up, down-up.

I'll just run through it once
so you know what's going on.

I'm using a G open chord.

It's a good idea to practice this
with open chords first, so you don't cheat.

If you're using barre chords,
you can lift them up a little bit

and that's kinda cheating a bit. So,

get yourself an open chord -- I'm using G --

you can use whatever you like.

First of all,
just get that real basic strumming, so:

One-and two-and three-and four-and,

One-and two-and three-and four-and.

Hopefully you've got that one by now,

So now what we're going to do

is we´re gonna add in that hit
on beats two and four.

So we have one-and TWO-and three-and FOUR-and

One-and TWO-and three-and FOUR-and

One-and TWO-and three-and FOUR-and

One-and TWO-and three-and FOUR-and

. . .

Just practice it slowly,
make sure you've got it right.

That's the most important thing,
trying to get it smooth, because it should.

It really kinda feels like a strum,

it doesn't feel like you suddenly have to do
something different with your arm.

Your arm should still be flowing:

. . .

I'm not feeling it's any different.

I do feel a little bit like my shoulder
is coming forward a bit

and I'm digging into the guitar a little bit,

but it's not changing the way
that the strumming feels.

Because remember, the hand should not stop moving
when you're strumming,

or it will kind of throw you off.

So, really important then just to practice:

Getting it in the groove,
getting your hit nice.

. . .

It's worth practicing as well sometimes

trying to get that hit so it's louder
than you think it should be.

So really try and throw it out.

. . .

Really try and give it some.

Because you'll probably find
that you're doing it a bit too quiet.

So, if you ever record yourself
or get a way of listening to yourself,

what you want to do then is
trying to even it out,

so it's at the right volume level.

But that's something you can only do
when you hear yourself back.

Now, once you've had a go
at doing that basic eighth-note one,

maybe you'd like to try
a sixteenth-note pattern,

and probably the one to go for
and to start off with again is

doing "one-and two-and three-and four-and",

but this time using all down strums, so:

One-and two-and three-and four-and.
All downs.

. . .

And then adding that snare hit
on the two and four.

So having: one-and TWO-and three-and FOUR-and

one-and TWO-and three-and FOUR-and

one-and TWO-and three-and FOUR-and

. . .

And if you've got that right,

you might like to try and add something else
a little bit more funky with the sixteenth-notes:

. . .

It's a really good idea
to try to insert this technique

into as many different rhythm patterns as you can.

You'll find that it works really well in some,
and not so well in others,

but that's really your call.
What you want to do is to get good at it enough,

that you can just let it flow
and start happening

whenever you want.

'Cause really with rhythm guitar,
it's not really like:

"learn this pattern and learn that pattern"

and numbering them
and all that sort of stuff,

it should just be kind of flowing,
going with the groove,

and then eventually finding the rhythm pattern
that works for that particular song.

So, see how many different rhythm patterns
you can insert this snare drum hit into.

It's lots of fun,
hope you've enjoyed it too.

See you for another lesson real soon.

Take care, bye-bye.