Rhythm Playing – Grade 5 Sixth Chord Progression

In preparation for a guitar lesson with one of my grade five students, I have this morning prepared an enjoyable barre chord workout focussing particular attention on sixth chords. There are two suggested rhythms in the chord chart including one that splits the bars and must played accurately, keeping a steady pulse throughout. If you [...]

Rhythm Playing – Two Threes in an Ab Bar

This morning I woke up playing through the Ab Natural Minor Scale in my head and came up with the following rhythm playing study to help my grade five guitar students to pass their fastly approaching RGT grade exams. It would be cruel if a grade five student was given a chord chart in Abm [...]

Rhythm Playing – Dampened Barre Chords

Using the left hand to dampen barre chords helps to create interesting rhythmic pattern within the music. The easiest way to dampen the strings is simply to release pressure from the fretting hand whilst still touching the strings. In the following exercises, it is important to ‘feel’ the rests with your dampening hand almost like [...]

Rhythm Playing – Swinging 6th Chords

I have some cool, jazzy sounding sixth chords this morning to jam along with in a Jamtastic manner. Use left hand dampening by releasing fretting hand pressure in between strums – this will make the piece swing and sound really danceable. Play around with the ideas, enjoy and I’ll see you tomorrow for another guitar tuition post. [...]

Rhythm Playing – Shuffle Rhythm in Bb

Chord chart reading is a very useful skill to have indeed. The ability to be able to quickly play through a set of unseen chords makes new songs easier to learn and will make you a better musician. In the following exercise, you will be playing a series of barre chords using a shuffle rhythm [...]