Luna artist and TrueFire acoustic guitar top educator, Vicki Genfan covers essential and very effective techniques for spicing up acoustic rhythm guitar parts for accompanying singers, performing cover tunes or composing original tunes. Ideal for singer-songwriters and early intermediate to advanced players.
If you play acoustic guitar, cover popular songs, write your own tunes, perform solo or work in a band setting, or just like strumming on the front porch, this is a must-have course of study.
Vicki's Acoustic Rhythm Guitar Primer steps you through 15 techniques and harmonic approaches for transforming any chord progression into compelling and engaging ear magic of your own.
You’ll play through a series of illuminating video lessons: Ascending Bass, Color Tones, Creating New Section, Harmonic Tapping, Combining Techniques, The I-IV-V, Power Chords, Voicings, Open Tunings, Percussion & Tapping, Harmony & Open Tuning, The I-V, Hammers & Pull-Offs, Changing Duration, and Partial Capo.
"These 15 tools can be applied to ANY style of music. They'll open your ears, mind, and creativity in ways that will forever impact the way you approach your rhythm guitar playing. The material ranges in difficulty, but most of the techniques can be implemented right away by the intermediate player. Even the simpler techniques can be applied in a more advanced context very easily, and I'll give you many examples of that throughout the course."
Powered by TrueFire, you’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the performance studies. Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to the video lesson. You can also loop or slow down the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.
Get a grip and combine these 15 creative approaches for hundreds of possibilities to apply in any musical setting. Breathe new life into any cover tune, solo performance, original composition, band or ensemble arrangement–it's all here!
What you'll learn
Navigate I-IV-V chord changes in a blues context
Use a partial capo (specifically Kaiser capo) to create unique chord voicings
Use different voicing options for the same chord progression
Understanding that many songs use the same basic chord progressions
Learning to play songs with just a handful of chords
Luna artist and TrueFire acoustic guitar top educator, Vicki Genfan covers essential and very effective techniques for spicing up acoustic rhythm guitar parts for accompanying singers, performing cover tunes or composing original tunes. Ideal for singer-songwriters and early intermediate to advanced players.
2Ascending Bass
The Ascending bass line refers to the bass notes of each chord in a progression moving up – usually in half or whole steps. According to the research of Richard Scott in his book, 'Chord Progressions for Songwriters', we can trace the use of this tool as far back as the late 1800's with Rag Time composer, Scott Joplin. The upward movement tends to give us an 'uplifting' feeling.<br><br>Additional songs using this technique are, "Ooh Baby Baby" by the Miracles, "Everybody wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears, "Autumn in New York" - Standard, "Kid Charlemagne" and "Do it Again" by Steely Dan, "Do You Believe in Magic" by the Lovin' Spoonful, and many, many more.<br><br>So - let's look at some ways we can 'freshen' up an Ascending Bass Line progression using some of our tools.
3Color Tones
If you want to experiment with adding different or additional color tones, feel free! You may use chord forms you've played before, or if you have a chord book, you can find voicings that you like and try them out.
4Creating New Section
Take time to feel all the 'anticipated' rhythms – both in the original ascending bass line progression (Dm-Em-F-G-Am) and the new section (G Am/F G).
5Harmonic Tapping
Use this exercise to sharpen your 'tapping' skills! Review the syncopated rhythms with me as I go through it on the video.<br><br><b>NOTICE:</b> Are there any songs you already know that might have some spaces where you could add harmonic tapping? Give it a try. It's a wonderful spice.
6Combining Techniques
Here's what we did: <br><br>1 Added color tones<br>2 'Borrowed' chords from the original progression and created a new section<br>3 Added harmonic tapping <br><br><b>TRY THIS:</b> Now you do it! Use my example or your own version of an Ascending Bass Note progression and try using these three tools...see where it leads you.<br><br><b>NOTE:</b> If you're like me, you may have the experience of starting to do an exercise and then becoming fascinated with something along the way that takes your attention and creativity in an entirely different direction. If this should happen – by all means – LET IT! Just keep your recording device nearby, promise me, OK?
7The I-IV-V
Lock all have their roots in the blues. <br><br>After showing you some 'familiar' ways of playing these progressions, I'll show you some new twists you can play around with.<br><br>Here's the way a 12 bar blues progression is laid out (all the chords may be dominant 7th chords, but don't have to be.)<br><br>I7 – 4 bars<br>IV7 - 2 bars<br>I7 - 2 bars<br>V7 – 1 bar<br>IV7 – 1 bar<br>I7 – 2 bars (the second bar of this usually has a 'turn around' – some version of a V7 that leads back to the I7)<br><br>Now here's the 'quick change' progression: (The 'quick' refers to going more quickly to the IV chord)<br><br>I7 – 1 bar<br>IV7 – 1 bar<br>I7 – 2 bars<br>IV7 – 2 bars<br>I7 – 2 bars<br>V7 – 1 bar<br>IV7 – 1 bar<br>I7 – 2 bars (again, the 2nd bar of this will likely be a turnaround on some variation of a V7 chord)<br><br><b>TRY THIS:>/b> The two different forms are really different in how they 'feel'... try playing them in any key you like and pay attention to how you feel and what melody or lyrical ideas come to you with each version. <br><br>If you're not a composer, record the two versions and then play around soloing (not important what level of skill you have here...just keep it very simple if you need to, we're going for 'feel' not chops), and notice how you're playing is different over the different forms. You may prefer one to the other, or just notice that they say different things musically. <br><br>You can find a vast library of blues songs in each form. In addition to the examples I've played on the video segment, here are a few more. These feature the 12 bar progression:<br><br>See See Rider by Ma Rainey, Corrine Corrina by Blind Lemmon Jefferson, Ramblin' on my Mind by Robert Johnson, Boom Boom by John Lee Hooker, Rock Me Baby by B.B.King<br>Some additional examples of tunes using the 'quick change' progression are: Backwater Blues by Bessie Smith, Traveling Riverside Blues by Robert Johnson, Rock Me Baby by B.B.King and Mean Old World by Otis Rush.
While I really enjoyed the examples for how to apply the the rhythm techniques that were taught, there are so many great ideas on how to dress up songs and create your own. Very inspiring!
