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I'm horrible at rhythm guitar


Incubus

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Posted

Since I started playing I've mostly focused on lead playing and the likes. Recently I've started to get more into country and have found myself playing a lot of covers by modern country bands. I find myself struggling to play rhythm parts smoothly. My pick will start to rotate in my hand after strumming chords for awhile, I don't transition between chords very smoothly, etc. Seems like I have the most trouble making smooth transitions between open chords the most, your whole hand isn't covering all the strings like a barr chord where it's easy to mute the strings between chords. I never seem to know if I should play all the open strings on a beat between chords or play a muted strum. Any tips for these problems besides the obvious need for just more practice?

 

Sorry for the jumbled text I'm just trying to get my point across quickly before I have to head out the door.

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Posted

Yours is a very common story. Rhythm guitar is one of the most un-glamorous elements of learning guitar. Far less material is written about despite the fact that professionals spend the vast majority of time on the gig accompanying others.

 

Pick rotating: I went through the same thing. Oddly enough, my solution was to just stop thinking about it. Over time, it stopped rotating on it's own.

 

Changing chords: Practice changing chord shapes in a song without strumming. As you do it, pay attention to whether or not there are any common fingers between the chords. If so, can you change chords without lifting the common finger?

 

Muting strings: Listen closely to every chord you play. For me, it's about standing the fingers up to get more clarity, or leaning them over to mute the adjacent string.

 

I hope that helps!

 

Jon

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Posted

It's all practice in my opinion.

 

I'm assuming you are a decent lead guitarist, but I also have a hunch you weren't born with that ability. Remember when you were fumbling about the fretboard sounding awful and wondering why it was all so bloody difficult?

 

The learning curve is the same, practice the things you want to improve and you will get better.

 

The thing is, when you get down to it, it's all the same thing and chordage and leadage benefit each other.

 

Listen to what you play, recording yourself would be better, then work out what sounds crap and adjust your technique to iron out the problems. As Jon said about the common finger thing, look at what you are playing and try to be lazy by not moving anything you don't need to, such as not taking your fingers 3 inch off the fretboard. Little improvements like that can make a huge difference.

 

Paul

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Posted

what i did when i was first learning was just learn how to make all my open chords and just start changing from one to another as fast as i could without breaking rhythm. just G C D C G C D C G and progressively get faster and smoother. thats the basic way i learned to play. learn something new every day

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