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Groove Guitar: Rhythm

10 Multi-Style Rhythm Grooves for Guitar

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Groove Guitar: Rhythm
James Hogan

James Hogan

Educator

blues-rock, rock, r&b

Genres

About this course

All of our guitar heroes have one thing in common -- they know how to lock their rhythm parts into the groove, whatever style they’re playing. And learning how to play solid rhythm guitar, in a variety of styles gets you the gig and keeps you up on the local jam stage all night long.

James Hogan’s Rhythm Edition of Groove Guitar will help you develop this essential skill by covering 10 must-know rhythm grooves showcasing a wide variety of tempos, feels, and styles. Jazz, Blues, Funk, Rock, Country, Gospel, Pop, and R&B styled grooves are all focused on, in this accelerated learning format.

For each of the 10 rhythm performance studies, James will first perform the parts over a backing track, and then break them down for you detailing all of the right- and left-hand techniques being used, as well as the creative and rhythmic approaches required to pull off the rhythm guitar parts authentically.

James will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way.  You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the rhythm performances. Plus, James includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own. In addition, you’ll be able to loop or slow down any of the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.

Grab your guitar and let’s get in the ‘groove’ with James Hogan!

What you'll learn

  • Play a 12/8 funk groove over 12-bar blues progression
  • Master 10 essential rhythm grooves with varied tempos and feels
  • Apply scratch/mute techniques to enhance groove
  • Understand the importance of nuance and inflection in groove playing
  • Develop ability to lock rhythm parts into the groove across multiple styles
Release date: 09/19/2018 • 1h 42m runtime
intermediatelate intermediateadvancedguitarelectric guitarchordschord progressionsrhythm
Start Course
Sample lessons
Quartet Groove
Quartet Groove
Overview
Quartet Groove
Quartet Groove
Performance
Quartet Groove
Quartet Groove
Breakdown
Nashville Hot
Nashville Hot
Overview

What's included

32 lessons • 10 charts • 10 Jam Tracks

Groove Guitar: Rhythm
Hi, I'm James Hogan and welcome to Groove Guitar: Rhythm. This course covers ten essential rhythm grooves showcasing a wide variety of rhythms, tempos, feels & styles. Jazz, blues, funk, rock, country, gospel, pop, and R&B styled grooves are all featured here so we'll definitely be covering a ton of ground in this diverse rhythm guitar course!

We'll start the course off with an old-school Southern gospel quartet "drive" that'll get you deep in the pocket and grooving hard with quarter notes. From there, we'll check out a classic 60's blues rock groove inspired by the incomparable Jimi Hendrix that showcases Jimi's rhythmic mastery. Once we tackle some of Jimi's iconic riff-based moves, we'll head down to Austin, TX to dig deep into a Stevie Ray Vaughan styled Texas blues shuffle!

You can't have a groove rhythm guitar course without including the "funk rhythm guitar master" Leo Nocentelli. We'll head to the "Big Easy" to dissect a traditional New Orleans clave groove and lay into some of Nocentelli's funky, syncopated chord moves! Next, we'll take a detour up to Nashville to check out a red hot country guitar shuffle in a rhythm guitar style reminiscent of some of Nashville's top session aces.

Some of the funkiest grooves of all time can be found in the music of James Brown. We'll tackle a super funky 12/8 guitar groove inspired by the JB's famous cut "Doing It to Death" aka "Funky Good Time". From there, we'll kick into overdrive and lay into a classic funk rock groove inspired by renowned Atlanta based funk rock legends Mother's Finest.

After we rock out a bit, we'll smooth things out with a classic R&B chord progression that showcases some really nice jazz voicings and ii-V-I's over a smooth R&B groove. Next up is a super funky 80's pop funk guitar groove inspired by Alex Weir from the Talking Heads and their classic "Burning Down The House". Finally, we'll close out with some signature 16th note guitar parts from "The Hitmaker" Nile Rodgers with a sneaky 2-3 clave over a modern pop dance groove.

Whether you're an intermediate player in need of some new ideas or a seasoned pro just looking for a refresher, I think you'll get a lot out of the material I'll be presenting here in this course. All of the examples are laid out for you in both tablature and standard notation, and I've included some really nice backing tracks for you to jam along with at home! Keep in mind, these examples cover a wide variety of grooves and showcase multiple techniques, with varying levels of difficulty. Let's get to it!
Quartet Groove
This example is inspired by Southern gospel quartet music. Since the early 20th century, four piece gospel quartet singing groups have played a prominent role in historically African American churches. In the early days, these groups were typically accompanied by piano, guitar or lap steel, although many churches had bass drums and tambourines to use as well in the early days.

With this instrumentation, there is a heavy emphasis on the quarter note; especially beats 2 and 4. Uptempo "drives" with tambourine or snare "cracks" on beats 2 and 4 are a staple in gospel music. This example in particular is a "drive" groove in E. Note: While many modern churches have moved on to full bands with full choirs, there are still many small churches that play quartet music. Also, fast quartet "drives" are still widely popular today, even in the bigger mega churches. It's definitely an essential groove that will help you learn to "dig" into quarter notes!

If you find yourself struggling with this tempo out of the gate, I recommend slowing it down to really master the accents and muting. Once it's clean, work it up to tempo and drive home those quarter notes!
Quartet Groove
This example is inspired by Southern gospel quartet music. Since the early 20th century, four piece gospel quartet singing groups have played a prominent role in historically African American churches. In the early days, these groups were typically accompanied by piano, guitar or lap steel, although many churches had bass drums and tambourines to use as well in the early days.

With this instrumentation, there is a heavy emphasis on the quarter note; especially beats 2 and 4. Uptempo "drives" with tambourine or snare "cracks" on beats 2 and 4 are a staple in gospel music. This example in particular is a "drive" groove in E. Note: While many modern churches have moved on to full bands with full choirs, there are still many small churches that play quartet music. Also, fast quartet "drives" are still widely popular today, even in the bigger mega churches. It's definitely an essential groove that will help you learn to "dig" into quarter notes!

If you find yourself struggling with this tempo out of the gate, I recommend slowing it down to really master the accents and muting. Once it's clean, work it up to tempo and drive home those quarter notes!
Quartet Groove
This example is inspired by Southern gospel quartet music. Since the early 20th century, four piece gospel quartet singing groups have played a prominent role in historically African American churches. In the early days, these groups were typically accompanied by piano, guitar or lap steel, although many churches had bass drums and tambourines to use as well in the early days.

With this instrumentation, there is a heavy emphasis on the quarter note; especially beats 2 and 4. Uptempo "drives" with tambourine or snare "cracks" on beats 2 and 4 are a staple in gospel music. This example in particular is a "drive" groove in E. Note: While many modern churches have moved on to full bands with full choirs, there are still many small churches that play quartet music. Also, fast quartet "drives" are still widely popular today, even in the bigger mega churches. It's definitely an essential groove that will help you learn to "dig" into quarter notes!

If you find yourself struggling with this tempo out of the gate, I recommend slowing it down to really master the accents and muting. Once it's clean, work it up to tempo and drive home those quarter notes!
Jimi Jam
Enough can't be said about the brilliance of Jimi Hendrix. No one really sounded like Jimi before he was on the scene and millions of guitarists have tried to sound like him since! That's the true mark of an icon, and in Jimi's case, a genius. While we love to focus on Jimi's revolutionary lead playing, his rhythm guitar playing was equally brilliant in my opinion.

This example highlights a riff based groove in Hendrix's style. The initial riff is a combination of E major and E minor pentatonic with a funky E9 chord thrown in the mix. For fun, I added a second section that uses barre chords over a straight 8th groove. Also, while you don't have to have a Strat and a "dimed" Marshall to play this example, it sure does sound great through that gear! If you're using single coil pickups I recommend using the neck pickup for this one. If you're using a guitar with two humbuckers, you can try using the middle position and balance the volumes to mimic single coils.

Remember, if you need to slow the riff down to get the timing on point, you can always slow down and jam along to the Guitar Pro file I've included with the course, in addition to the backing track.
Jimi Jam
Enough can't be said about the brilliance of Jimi Hendrix. No one really sounded like Jimi before he was on the scene and millions of guitarists have tried to sound like him since! That's the true mark of an icon, and in Jimi's case, a genius. While we love to focus on Jimi's revolutionary lead playing, his rhythm guitar playing was equally brilliant in my opinion.

This example highlights a riff based groove in Hendrix's style. The initial riff is a combination of E major and E minor pentatonic with a funky E9 chord thrown in the mix. For fun, I added a second section that uses barre chords over a straight 8th groove. Also, while you don't have to have a Strat and a "dimed" Marshall to play this example, it sure does sound great through that gear! If you're using single coil pickups I recommend using the neck pickup for this one. If you're using a guitar with two humbuckers, you can try using the middle position and balance the volumes to mimic single coils.

Remember, if you need to slow the riff down to get the timing on point, you can always slow down and jam along to the Guitar Pro file I've included with the course, in addition to the backing track.
Jimi Jam
Enough can't be said about the brilliance of Jimi Hendrix. No one really sounded like Jimi before he was on the scene and millions of guitarists have tried to sound like him since! That's the true mark of an icon, and in Jimi's case, a genius. While we love to focus on Jimi's revolutionary lead playing, his rhythm guitar playing was equally brilliant in my opinion.

This example highlights a riff based groove in Hendrix's style. The initial riff is a combination of E major and E minor pentatonic with a funky E9 chord thrown in the mix. For fun, I added a second section that uses barre chords over a straight 8th groove. Also, while you don't have to have a Strat and a "dimed" Marshall to play this example, it sure does sound great through that gear! If you're using single coil pickups I recommend using the neck pickup for this one. If you're using a guitar with two humbuckers, you can try using the middle position and balance the volumes to mimic single coils.

Remember, if you need to slow the riff down to get the timing on point, you can always slow down and jam along to the Guitar Pro file I've included with the course, in addition to the backing track.

+ 25 more lessons

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Reviews

10 results

10YearsGone

Verified buyer

06/23/26

You will definitely Groove!

Never heard of James Hogan before now and glad I stumbled onto him as he is a great teacher and laidback and calm yet he is just a great teacher and really am enjoying this and so much I have gotten his other courses! Well worth checking out🤘

BradleyM

Verified buyer

10/27/22

Variety, Variety, Variety

Great course which covers several genres. James Hogan provides great instruction at the right pace and additional information on amp settings and other matters. My first purchase of a James Hogan course and probably will not be my last.

Ohio5665

Verified buyer

10/19/22

Groove Guitar: Rhythm

James Hogan's courses are great and this one is too! I learn a lot from his lessons and he explains and demonstrates his ideas clearly. Especially liked the gospel groove lesson!

Yarden

07/14/22

This is a GREAT course!

This course is SO MUCH FUN! James instantly puts you in the cockpit of a fast and really interesting groove, and when you manage to play it you say "WHOAH, was that me just playing that?" The grooves are great, the teaching material is excellent, and it is both challenging and rewarding. Great job James!

Osokin

Verified buyer

06/27/21

Improve Your Groove!

James Hogan's rhythm playing and sense of groove is exemplary, as is his ability to clearly communicate and breakdown his approaches. A brilliant and inspiring course which can really have a profound effect on your ability to groove in a wide range of styles.

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