Ten Gallon Guitar: Rhythm

Alright, let's get started. In Section 1, we'll look at some wonderful rhythm techniques which I use in my playing. We'll start by looking at moving the basslines when playing rhythm, approaching rhythm as a lead guitar perspective, and look at some genres like bluegrass, country, blues, rockabilly, western swing, and even heavy rock.

When developing a rhythm part as a lead guitarist, it's a good idea to bring the bassline in with the rhythm. This will help you when using fills by making sure you start everything from the root note. Make sure that you're looking for holes in the action to place your fills, adding flavor and complementing the vocalist and not stepping all over them.

In this lesson, we'll develop this concept over our rhythm part with a bluegrass lick. We'll also move around our bassline within the chord progression while keeping our lick in the equation.

Let's go over some bluegrass inspired techniques on an electric guitar. Playing bluegrass on an electric guitar may seem a little different, but if you want to play fast—as we chickin pickers are prone to do—it's definitely the way to go.

When I play these bluegrass licks, I'm using my middle and ring finger alongside the pick, which have attached fake nails (which I use to play the chickin pickin' style licks as well). They also help me keep my hand stationary and still near the back of the bridge. The pick is hitting the bass notes while my nails hit the higher strings, allowing me to do some rolls and separate the rhythm from the bass part. This gives you more of your hand to play the bluegrass licks with, and allows you to move them around the bassline.

So in Ten Gallon Guitar, we went over how every A connects to itself. Well, it's the exact same way with chords, as long as you know where they are. Why is this important? It'll allow you to move around the neck and adapt if you're playing with a band and things don't go as planned. In this lesson, we'll look at a few chord options in different positions on the neck and how to incorporate them with each other.

Now we'll talk about one of my favorite rhythms—the rhythm for "Working Man Blues," a Merle Haggard tune that's a favorite of any country player. It's usually played in A, however we'll learn it in B here to help us with the percussive aspects. There are two distinct parts being played here, the chord being on the bottom strings with your fingers, and the second percussive part being picked up top.

Next, we'll move it back into A and listen to how it's usually played. I'll demonstrate a few licks that you can use with this rhythm part and how to move it around to different positions on the neck. Just remember, if you want to use filler licks with the rhythm part you have to really nail the percussive part to make it work!

Let's move into a whole new area of rhythm guitar: fingerpicking! A popular style of rhythm playing, with guys like Chet Atkins, Merle Travis, Hank Garland, and even John Denver and folk musicians all using fingerpicking in their music. I'm still picking up top and playing with my fingers on the bottom, keeping the bassline going and rolling with my fingers. We'll go over how to work this technique into your rhythm playing, and how to add movement into this style with some techniques and filler licks to use as well.