When I first picked up guitar a few years ago, I was focused on lead guitar. I played other instruments growing up and didn’t actually care to play guitar, until I played Guitar Hero and I realized how fun it could be. And because I played that game, I, like many, was intrigued by playing lead and soloing.
I spent the first year mostly learning scales and how to improvise, which was fun and all, but there weren’t really any backing tracks for the stuff I liked playing, which is Japanese rock music. Japanese music tends to have more complex chord progressions, and it’s very similar to another genre I really love, gospel. They both have a way of using instruments and progressions to make you feel something.
So I started getting more into rhythm thanks to Guitar Tricks (click here for my thorough review) and I haven’t looked back since. It definitely took a long time to figure out what I was hearing in some songs since rhythm lessons don’t really go past 8-beat strumming and basic chords, , and it’s honestly disappointing. Rhythm guitar has so much potential! And here people are wondering if it’s even necessary!
Of course, if you’re only playing basic open chords and power chords with basic 8 beat strumming, rhythm is gonna seem boring. It doesn’t surprise me that Western musicians aren’t interested. It’s similar to how people look down on bass and how many bassists only play the bass note. But if you only took the time to really know the bass, or if you gave bass to someone who knows and respects it, you will be blown away by it’s potential.
I have written articles in the past about why you should consider rhythm over lead guitar (since every other article was bashing rhythm), and why you may regret neglecting rhythm guitar, but in this, I just wanted to share some ideas on how to level up your rhythm if you’re interested. Definitely check out my video of me applying some of these techniques that I learned form Japanese music.
1. Learn More Chords!
The most obvious tip that will take your rhythm playing to the next step is to learn more chords! If you’re only playing the basic 8 open chords, you are greatly limiting your possibilities. You definitely need to learn barre chords as this opens up your key options and progression possibilities. You’ll see later that barre chords are also necessary for muting techniques.
If you don’t know your sus chords or dominant chords, those definitely need to be on your list. You should get to the point where you can pull up the chords for a random song, and should be able to play most of them without having to learn or re-learn chords all the time. Don’t avoid barre chords and don’t get lazy. You should aim to be able to play each basic chord at least 3 different ways/places.
2. Try 16-Beat Strumming
Chances are, if you’ve been playing acoustic or rhythm guitar for some times, you are more likely playing 8-beat strumming. That means you do downstrokes on 1, 2, 3, 4 and you do upstrokes on the &’s between them: “1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &”.
However, you can level that up and increase the number of possible strumming patterns you can do. 16 beat strumming means you’ll be doing downstrokes on the numbers and ‘&’, and an additional beat is placed between it: “1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a”.
You could look at this as just 8-beat times 2, BUT you can also do more interesting rhythm progressions since you have more space and more strums. Definitely check out the videos below if you’re new to the concept. It’s my favourite strumming style!
3. Swap In 7th Chords
So you have your major and minor chords down, and you can play most songs with just those. However, if you want change up a song and make it more pretty, you can exchange them for 7th chords!
Normally, a chord is made up with the 1st, 3rd, and 5th note of that scale. To turn a chord into a 7th chord, you would add the 7th. Major becomes Major 7th, Minor becomes Minor 7th. The only exception is the V chord. If you don’t understand what that means, definitely check out the videos below. My Japanese Music Progression course also teaches theory from the bottom up!
4. Make Longer Progressions
Western music is known for having 3-4 chord loops. There are even songs like Achy Breaky Heart which has only 2 chords! Since the West focuses more on beats, vocals, and catchy riffs, chord progressions are usually just reused and overdone.
Now don’t get me wrong, these predictable progressions work and sell. Generally, people like catchy or simple music they can play in the background. But if you really want to impress your musician friends, or at least create a piece of music that can bring people to tears without a singer, it’s worth experimenting by creating longer progressions.
This is very common in Japanese music and I truly love it! Their use of borrowed chords, secondary dominants, and diminished chords makes your ears perk up because you can’t predict where the song is going. They also love to modulate (change keys) mid song. If you want to learn what they’re doing, check out my Japanese Music Progressions course!
5. Play With Power Chords
If you play electric guitar, power chords are usually a given. However, I have noticed that people seem to keep power chords within punk and pop rock. I get that power chords can seem really simple and thus are prone to being underrated, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have additional purposes!
If you’re making longer progressions, sometimes, a major or minor chord just doesn’t fit in a certain context, so you can use a power chord (or ‘5’ chord), to add some ambiguity to the situation. Or if you’re using open chords during the verse or chorus, you can change it up by using power chords. It’s a great way to turn an acoustic piece into something with more drive.
And in case you didn’t know, power chords don’t have to be just 1-5, or 1-5-1. Even in the songs above, they use a few alternate power chords…which aren’t ‘technically’ power chords, but they are easy to transition to and add if you are already playing them. My favourite is the diminished power chord, which is 1-5♭-1. There are 7th power chords which are prettier, and 5th on the bottom which is heavier!
6. Try Funky/Muted Strumming
So, back to 16-beat strumming, a cool style that comes out from that is funky strumming. You’re not only strumming more, but you’ll be using left-hand muting to create a funky groove. This is a common technique in funk and R&B, but I really love hearing it in Japanese rock and alternative music. The first time I even noticed this funky strumming was in “Kizukeyo Baby” by The Oral Cigarettes, followed by other songs in their discography.
Palm muting is another option that can be used with any chord since you’re using your right hand. In this case, you can still kinda hear the chord, but it is quite stifled, which is great when you need a quieter moment to build up to the chorus. You can also mix it up like funky strumming and create fun rhythms.
7. Incorporate Percussive Strumming
If you’re playing acoustic guitar, some electric guitar muting techniques may not work as well, but one that you can take advantage of is acoustic slapping and/or percussive strumming. This is something that’s a bit harder to explain but definitely watch the videos below. It’s a really cool style that can add a lot of flare and groove to your playing!
8. Play Arpeggios (Broken Chords)
In this context, I’m referring to arpeggios in which you hold down the full chord on your left hand, and you pick each string in a sequence on the right. On a piano, it’s a lot easier to look into this technique, but guitar has turned it into lead arpeggios, but I am simply talking about a broken chord.
In my cover in the intro for “Seven” from Digimon, I was mostly strumming, but during the intro and the end, I would slow down the chord and also do arpeggios to make it a little prettier. In this other song, “Uragiri no Yuuyake“, you can also hear arpeggios in the pre-chorus.
9. Check Out Triads
A basic chord requires at least 3 notes. Major, minor, suspended, diminished, and augmented all only need 3 notes (More info on how basic chords are made here). So, how and why do we tend to play 4, 5, or 6 string chords for these notes? Well, we are simply duplicating some of those notes to create a fuller sound. Thus, triads will take us back to the ultimate basics.
Triads can be played on any 3 strings; however, the top 3 strings or strings 2-4 seem to be the most common. When you play on higher strings, they are more on the treble side and thus are brighter and stick out a bit more. It’s common to learn and use inversions so you can more easily switch between chords. They’re not too hard to remember if you notice they are just some other chords missing the top strings.
This is a very common technique in funk, but again, you can use any technique in any genre. Triads are also great when doubling up on guitar in a band so you can avoid playing in the same frequencies. I definitely see this a lot in math rock where they want a more twinkly and bright sound. Of course, soloing and other lead techniques like sweep picking are also a breeze if you got your triads down.
10. Learn Voice Leading To Create Melodies
Chord melodies are a bit hard to explain, but I’ll do my best. If you play chords that are very similar, but have only one note difference, when you play them in sequence, you can make an underlying melody through this. For example, if you played a Dsus4 chord, then a D major chord, then a Dsus 2 chord, you’ll hear one note moving downwards, and you can create a melody this way.
Again, back to my “Seven” cover, there’s a few places where I use similar chords to add additional sounds while I am playing chords. Around 0:36, I go from Em to E, and then Am to Am7. I’m playing 4 chords in sequence, but you can hear a kind of melody under it since it’s done at the same time. Below are some videos that go into how you can do this yourself.
Bonus: Put Them All Together
Who said you had to stick to just one style, one strumming pattern, or one kind of chord? If you aren’t playing with a band or you don’t have a singer to accompany you, then this is the best way to keep a listener interested from beginning to end.
Conclusion
I hope this article gave you some ideas on how to spice up your rhythm playing. It’s sad that it took me 2-3 years to even learn about some of these techniques since Youtube teachers are so focused on lead techniques. I’m still in a late beginner/early intermediate phase, otherwise, I would have loved to demonstrate more for you myself.
Feel free to leave comments below on why you love rhythm and what some of your favourite techniques are! Also feel free to connect with me on Instagram @key2nostalgia!