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Many people err because guitarists who play rhythm/chords are less professional than those who play solo (lead guitar). It is easy to believe that someone who knows how to press many areas in the guitar neck area is much more professional and skilled than the player playing just rhythm/chords.
Quite a few guitarists also believe in this cliche.
Early in my musical career, I used to make contact with new guitarists, sometimes professionals from me, to play together in the jam session. I wanted to experience techniques different from those I was familiar with. I wanted to do the solo and let someone else perform the accompaniment to improve my skill on a lead guitar, caress my ego, and feel more professional.
I believed that someone who plays solo was more talented and professional than those who only play rhythm. One day, fate summoned me to meet a veteran and professional guitarist from me. He saw the videos I sent him and was not impressed.
His first question was: “How is your skill in rhythm guitar”? I answered him naturally that I prefer to focus on a lead guitar just because an accompaniment seems monotonous and boring to me.
He did not want to meet me and advised me to persevere in improving my skill as a rhythm guitarist, no less than creating solo pieces, and made it clear that this skill is essential to any guitarist or anyone who calls himself a guitarist.
I begged to meet him, but he elegantly evaded claiming that he lived far away and sent me to grow up with myself and try to find my way on my own. I did not want to learn rhythm. All my life, I have played rhythm. It seems boring to me. Monotonous and rather shallow.
I continued to look for new guitarists for jam session sessions.
After many searches, a nice guy contacted me and offered to meet for a musical encounter. He was a professional guitarist like other famous guitarists I knew. His rhythm skill was very professional. The universe sent me a master guitarist who knows the realm of rhythm from a different direction than I knew.
He knew how to create chords and rhythms that sounded better than any lick, scale, or unique solo piece.
He illustrated to me without talking about how important the rhythm guitar is in a song and how important it is to specialize in a rhythm guitar and learn many styles and techniques. I realized that I was pretty locked in and started researching this topic myself.
First, I listened to many different famous songs to find my favorite rhythm. I made a list of several interesting rhythms, and I entered Youtube to find professional lessons – I found.
It was hard to learn that. Sometimes more difficult than a long solo of a famous song. I didn’t give up. It was a significant challenge for me as a guitarist. From day to day, I paid attention my rhythm skill improved. A few months later, I composed a new song based on rhythm.
I built an instrumental skeleton for a potential song and was in no hurry to create a solo. It was essential for me to create rhythms that others had never played.
To do this, I had to listen to many styles and learn mostly the familiar and well-known rhythms from famous songs, ones that every beginning and advanced guitarist knows how to do, to develop my skill until I can create a song based on a rhythm guitar, without having to add a solo piece as an interesting spice and without adding another lick or riff – rhythm only.
As I deepened my knowledge in the field of rhythm, I created rhythms, chords, and techniques that made each song mysterious and interesting.
Even today, I do not give up on myself and try to learn a new song with a new rhythm every week. I know I have a lot more to learn, enriching my knowledge with many techniques I have not been exposed, to sound more professional in the future.
This article will speak to guitarists and musicians. Those who know something about playing keyboards or guitars will understand most of the following recommendations.
If you are not one of the beginners or advanced group of musicians, keep reading. It can help you direct and recommend to the musicians you know or let them read the helpful tips that will make them more professional.
Imagine a situation where you are playing with another person. That person is a talented guitarist no less than you, or maybe even less talented than you, but he wants to highlight his skills as a lead guitarist, and he decides to shoot a video of both of you. He chooses the lead guitarist position.
And he leaves the rhythm to you. This situation can be frustrating since everyone would want to be remembered as unique as a lead singer.
On the other hand, you do not wish to quarrel with the same person because this is not an award-winning competition but a common hobby development.
You may find yourself in a kind of dilemma.
The camera is aimed at you in front of your face, and you want to be remembered as a professional guitarist. Still, on the other hand, you want to be a friendly person. You must be prepared for any future scenario of this kind, even if you did not know or did not consider that you would get the “rhythm” role in the session itself.
My recommendation in situations of this kind is to flow with what is being offered to you. Do not resist, and be open to playing rhythm. You may find yourself “stuttering” kind of rhythm and even realize that you need to improve your rhythmic skill and learn new rhythm techniques.
You may be asked to play a rhythm again and leave the solo to others in the future, so make sure to learn winning techniques and create some of your own so that once you play them, your backing guitar will sound as unique as someone playing a solo, and the sound will sound better than the other side’s solo.
How do you create a situation where your rhythm surpasses your partner’s solo and puts you in the center of the stage?
It already depends on your creativity to create a unique rhythm. This can be through specs or fingering with the “fingerstyle” fingers on an acoustic guitar and even an electric one.
It will require you to learn and improve your rhythm skill in advance. The right way to do this is to listen to as many songs from others as possible, preferably famous songs with interesting and unique rhythms until you notice an interesting accompaniment that catches your attention.
Write the song on the side, and look for an instructional video on YouTube that will teach you how to play the song’s rhythm according to the original version. After you learn and rehearse it daily, keep listening to more songs and repeat the same tactic, that is, write down the name of the song on the side and look for a tutorial video for learning the rhythm and continue rehearsing the two songs at the same time.
Remember to practice each song daily and several times a day until you know how to play it out of sleep. Once a week chose a new song and dedicate two to three hours a day to practice.
Training on the rhythms that interest you will improve your sense of rhythm that will be assimilated into you without you being aware of it. It will not be long before you discover that you can create a unique rhythm for a new song you have just written or while recording a new song, and even in an impromptu jam session where you will be asked to improvise a unique rhythm.
As you practice different rhythms, styles, and genres and persevere in them, your sense of rhythm will be more professional, and you will be able to build your unique rhythm styles. Sometimes you may feel “stuck” in some complex parts that you learn. Such a situation can be frustrating.
Remember that it’s all a matter of training and practice. When you encounter a situation of this kind, leave the guitar aside for a day or two and return to the instructional video and guitar afterward.
After at least two days, you will be surprised to find that you remember what you learned and can play quite easily the passages you had difficulty with before.
The more you persevere in this every day for two hours, the more professional you will hear in the eyes of others who will not spare you compliments and superlatives.
In more advanced stages, you can create songs based on unique rhythms and chords that you will develop on your own, ones that will sound special without adding a unique riff or a solo section.
It will only happen if you are educated to get out of your comfort zone and be willing to learn new rhythms, different and complex from those you know. All you have to do is want to add interest to the song through a dominant accompaniment that will sound professional.
Here are 12 tips to help you build professional rhythm roles for songs and make your playing reach the front of the stage!
1. Dynamics of musical intensity – you can start with a quiet or monotonous dynamic and continue with changes in the power of play. Not all rhythms will be at the same intensity or tone, but they maintain the pattern of the song. Treat it like speech when your tone changes during the conversation, depending on the nature of the conversation. Do not forget that a rhythm that sounds at the same volume and tone from the beginning of the play may sound robotic and damage the song’s texture.
2. Make changes in the dynamics of the rhythms – that is, make changes in the rhythm of the fingering and not play in a fixed pattern that repeats itself. I will simplify it to it will be easy for you to understand. You can use a basic rhythm pattern with which you start. Still, as the song progresses, you can format the strumming on the strings in a different style, that is, continue at the same pace where you started but occasionally add a strum and sometimes omit a strumming, such as one time play to create harmonized and one time to do mute on the strings when you are strumming. The main idea here is to understand the sense of rhythm in the song and strum freely in the spirit of the main rhythm while adding and subtracting certain parts of the rhythms to add an interesting and unexpected hue.
3. Separation of bass and chord – When you strumming with your fingers or with a specification on all the strings and play a chord, try to separate the strings you play from the bass strings, that is, bass strings that are not played on them. Such a separation will accentuate the sound of the chord independently and separately in that it will sound clear and bold. The resolution increases when playing with the separation of the bass and the rest of the strum on the chord.
4. Use the appropriate specifications – When you want a soft and caressing sound, you need to loosely use thin specifications and strum. When you want a more dominant sound, use thicker specifications and maintain a firmer grip. It is customary to use a thick specification for solo playing, but sometimes it is also used for rhythm, depending on the rhythm. It is advisable to have different specifications, thick and thin, who made from different raw materials like wood, metal, plastic, and nylon when each is thin or thick. The diameter of the specification affects the tone of the sound, and the use of different specifications changes the guitar’s original sound. So specification can be used as an effect when you want to record or even in performances when you go from song to song depending on the style and create a different texture to the sound obtained in the guitar each time.
5. Position of the chords in the neck – The position of the chords’ grip affects the nature of the sound obtained in both electric and acoustic guitars. When playing open chords at the beginning of the neck, the resonant volume is more significant, richer, and longer. Open chords can also be played in the middle and end of the neck to create a more dominant and sharp harmony. When playing closed chords in the middle and end of the neck called: Barre Chord, their sound sounds a bit blocked or clear but less open. It is customary to use them in various songs and styles in almost every song, and they are, in fact, another form of the open chord, depending on the nature of the sound you want the song to sound.
6. Chord inversions – One of the most important things you need to know about guitar chords is the way they sound in different positions. Creating chords is a great way to express your ideas. Inversions are a common way to make different sounds by doubling a chord. When used correctly, these inversions allow for a more dense and close sound, both in terms of sound conduction and physical on the guitar, and in addition, you can add subtle tension and drama to a chord. It’s so easy to learn those chords, and it can significantly expand your guitar playing skills.
7. Adding sounds to the scale chord – When creating a melody, the player should know the notes in the scale and chord tones. Adding sounds to the scale chord is a great way to add complexity and spice up playing. In terms of rank and position, the player can play with the sounds surrounding the chord and create additional colors for rhythm. Generally, it can add up to three notes at a time to an existing chord. A great way to create a unique interpretation of the melody is to change the tonic note and create a different sounding scale. This technique is useful for experimenting with phrasing, especially when composing improvisations and melodies. When changing three or four notes, however, you will end up with a different chord.
8. Different styles and rhythms – it does not matter if you play a classical guitar with nylon strings, acoustic guitar, or electric guitar. The general idea is to know how to vary the rhythms. Each genre has several types of rhythms. Reggae, for example, plays mute chords so that only 7-10 percent of the original resonance of the chord can be heard, and this is the original rhythm associated with the reggae. When playing rock, open chords or power chords style is most often used when the bass strings are more dominant in the strumming. The best way to sound professional is to learn as many guitar rhythms as possible to enrich your repertoire. In some songs, each chord can be broken down into individual sounds heard in a more ventilated sequence. As you get to know different styles and rhythms, it will be easy to build your rhythms and even develop a rhythm style that will be identified with you. It is important to be open to learning styles or genres you’re less like.
9. A different play in octaves to create a richer sound – In music, the concept of doubling is not uncommon. Each musical note has a unique frequency. Playing two notes at the same frequency will create harmony and enrich the tone of the sound. The same concept applies to different musical notes, meaning if you play lead guitar, try to play an octave that is different from other instruments to create a richer texture that will give more space to each instrument and create rich harmony. On the other hand, if you play rhythm, try to change the chord sound to add depth to the guitar sound by separating chord notes into different octaves. If you play in a band or even play with friends in jam session sessions, you can use this technique to create a richer sound.
10. Dynamic use of bass strings – When playing chords that are responsible for the overall rhythm of the song, one often tends to omit the use of bass strings depending on the type of chord. It will be necessary for the song not to sound monotonous and rather shallow and tedious to find a role beyond the bass strings to move between the different chords. Using the bass strings in the various passages will double the harmony and sometimes affect the dynamics in the song to lead to the next chord.
11. The solid element of the song – a quality song from any genre must have rhythm. The rhythm guitarist uses the chords as a solid element of the song, and it is the skeleton of the song. Supportive back. A guitarist who plays the rhythm role must be familiar with the structure of the various rhythms or rhythms essential to the songs he plays as a necessary step in the song’s success. Guitarists who play mostly rhythm, their role is to support the main melody, and be aware of their role in the rhythm section, even if it means playing effortless chords but with a unique rhythm. For example, in a rock band, a rhythm guitarist is an essential skill for the song. Some bands divide the guitar into two roles. One is the lead guitarist (lead guitar – solo), and the other is the rhythm guitar (chords and rhythms). A professional rhythm guitarist must be in sync with a guitarist playing a lead guitar and adapt himself to the singer, bass, and drums.
12. Tips to build rhythm guitar roles – If you’re looking to jump from a guitar student to a full-time musician, here are some valuable tips to develop your playing career. The first rule of playing rhythm is to leave plenty of room between chords. In other words, you shouldn’t monopolize the space but instead, provide a variety of levels of dynamic complexity. In addition, you must understand chords and learn how to switch between them within a strict beat. Practice these transitions until you feel comfortable with the techniques. Beginners should learn the open and barre chords, while more advanced players should practice playing bar chords and extended chords, and of course, many different rhythms. The key is to challenge yourself and keep learning. (Don’t forget it).
I recorded the song presented in the video below towards the end of 2019, and it is entirely based on a unique rhythm that I created for him, but between the transitions, I added two adapted solo pieces. You don’t have to be a guitarist or a musician to remember the song according to the unique rhythm that manages to make you remember the song from the first listen.
I hope this helps you build attractive, fun, and creative rhythm roles!
Good luck!
