hi all.

after reading a great thread on here about how important rhythm playin is for your lead playin thew weeks back. i cant stop thinking about how ive got to improve my blues rhythm.

all i really play is lead. and like someone said on that thread, how rubbish i would be to jam with.

im quite a competent lead player now, but rhythm im pretty crap. i dont have a problem with bar chords or anything like that. just havent bothered to do that cause all i wanted to do was rip it like the real men now i feel like a fraud....

so wondering if anyone can give me any pointers or advice on where to start for blues rhythm.

i once heard bb king say in a interview. "now kids, make sure you learn your blues progressions now, becuse iar never did" whats that then? i need to learn them surely.

so really i need to get to the point where someone could say play me a blues in d, g, a, whatever, and i would know what chords make up that key. is that right?

so any "rhythm masters" out there? really could do with some help!!!!

thanks

louis

You can get your eyes and ears on some pretty good freebie blues rythm AND licks lessons on youtube. just type in something like blues guitar lessons. And if you have the free realplayer download, you can download them by putting your cursor at the top edge of the video's image, and clicking on the drop down box that appears. If you put some time into looking around in there, i think you'll find that it's not too shabby, for free lessons. There are some entire basics to advanced sets in there, having as much as ten pretty decent videos in my humble opinion.

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http://www.youtube.com/user/guitarjamzdotcom

This guy is the best teacher on youtube by far in my opinion. Easy to follow, breaks it down nice and slow. I've learned a lot from Marty. Just go to this link then search "Blues" within his videos and it'll bring up tons of videos teaching blues riffs, songs, etc. Beginner to advanced lessons.

I remember that thread.

I'd like to suggest a totally different approach. Good rhythm is good rhythm and to be an accomplished rhythm player, you should be starting from scratch and not from within a style because you will always have that style's accents as an underlying habit no matter what you try to branch out into.

Get a bunch of standard, basic songs: Nursery rhymes, Christmas Carols, The Beatles, anything in 4 - 4 time. Learn your open voice chords and how to finger them cleanly. FORGET all your shredding instincts for the moment which means, humping on the last two or three strings of barre chords is now, right out. Learn to play the aforementioned tunes as any and all will be straight forward. From there you'll develop a sense of feel for each and every tune you are playing without being locked into a genre. From there, clean up the upper three strings on your barre chords.

Always keep in mind that good rhythm playing is all about supporting the melody and NOT competing with it. Your objective shall always be to creating a feeling of fullness but NOT clutter, IN ACCORDANCE with the overall feel of the song. In the beginning you may feel frustrated and amazed at how tricky it can be finding that sweet spot in between boring and overplaying while trying to carry the song instead of going off on some kind of tangent with it. Your ultimate objective is to always be within the musical context of the song and INSPIRING yet again, within the song's context. Lead playing is more taking the song to it's next level. Rhythm playing is to keep it healthy and on course for lead instruments be it voice, guitar or whatever.

This is merely IMO, YMMV.

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You dig?

What Martian said +100%

Listen to he best rhythm players out there too! Malcolm Young, Izzy Stradlin, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend etc.
Hear how they are doing exactly what Martian said; making a song fuller and holding it perfectly without battling the harmony.

CC

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Good post Martian. Your spot on.... Mike

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

hi guys.

thanks for the replys, yep that martys cool. good teacher.

martian is right tho, i do need to start from basics, but not that basic, ive played acoustic guitar for 10yrs. what i want to get better at is my blues rhythm. As i play 90%blues at least now, but just lead thats my problem.

i wanna learn bluesy chords and the general structure of a blues song. what chords are in Am blues? what chords are in C blues? i want to understand what a blues progression is typicaly made up of?

thanks

Try this friend... http://www.i-love-guitar.com/blues-guit ... sions.html It will answer the questions you asked..... Mike

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

Blues isn't about composition so much as it is feel. Most of the time it is just a simple I-IV-V with a turnaround, but there are an infinite amount of ways to play a I-IV-V rhythmically speaking. The best way to learn the blues is to play the blues. When it feels right, it is right. Easier said than done as most things in music.

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There are many excellent backing tracks sites on the net that you can play along with to get the feel for the timing and progressions,a buddy of mine was having the same problem and got on a site and it worked wonders.Two sites are Backing Trax and Lawerence Fritts Backing Tracks.

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thanks guys

appreciated, will check them sites out.. sweet.

playing rhythm is so impotant in your over all development as a player. Like all of the others on this forum have metioned there are many great places to find information on how to improve. You may know how to play a 1 6 2 5 turn around, but do you know it in multiple inversions? Great players like eldin shamblim could do solos with just chords by knowing the inversion that had the not from the melody. Sadly not many know or are willing to take the time to learn the chords, with that said, inhmo as a lead player you cannot be a sucessfull lead player with out being a proficent rhythm. It is somewhat like driving a car, you may be a great race car driver, but if u go off the basic path u migh wreck. Plus the more chords u know, and the more arpeggios you can attatch to the more colorful your solos and it will keep you from getting stale in your playing......

+1 http://www.guitarjamz.com

Best teacher out there hands down.

some ideas for you here ...

http://www.bluesrepublic.org/blogs/lear ... x?q=rhythm

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