Here's some tips on playing Rhythm guitar.
Pick choice - use at least a Medium pick (plectrum) starting out. And you'll make mistakes at first, and will even drop the dang pick at times until... you get used to the 'feel' of how hard to strum the strings by lightly gliding through them to keep the pick in your hand. Using at least a Medium thick pic will make sure you're 'feeling' the strings, very important for beginners.
Downward Strum - most of the time you'll start off playing chords with a downward strum on the first beat of the song. This is the strum you want to practice with at first to get your timing down. So everything that follows this section is to be done with a Downward strum, starting on the top bass E string downward through the rest of the strings, medium-slow, trying to sound them all with one sweeping stroke. Plant your pick hand elbow on the guitar and move your whole forearm, with a somewhat soft wrist action. Let your wrist act as a shock absorber for the pick hitting the strings. (I'll assume you already know at least two or three chord fingerings at this point).
Another thing; Slow is Good, at this point if your a beginning guitarist. Slow means 'Solid' Technique which is essential to become a faster, smoother rhythm player later. And it's going to torment your fretboard hand a bit at first, but no pain, no gain. (Yet train, don't strain. Always rest your hands if you start to develop a cramp). If you're doing this with an electric guitar, turn off all distortion at this point, and turn the amp volume down so you can hear any mistakes.
Open Chords
An Open Chord is simply a chord fingering played within the first 3 frets, some of the strings left to sound open (not fretted). This is the most common type of beginning chords because they're easiest to learn to fret quickly and move from one to another.
Rhythm Timing
Some basic music time understanding needed at this point - a song is made up of bars, or measures. The song has a Time Signature usually marked at the left-hand corner of the first bar of the musical Staff, and stated as a fraction, like 4/4 or 3/4, or with just a letter C, which means Common Time or 4/4.
4/4 Time means each bar or measure is to have 4 Beats (four beats to each bar). The way I recommend you count 4/4 time in your head is to say... '1 and 2 and 3 and 4'.
Each number is a beat. Each 'and' is in between the beat. And for starters, on each beat is where you want to do a Downward strum on the guitar.
For Waltz time (3/4), it's 3 beats to each bar; the count is simply... 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, etc. A single downstroke strum for each beat is all that's often used, especially in Jazz and Western Swing and Country styles.
Downward Strum in 4/4
Do a Downward strum on each beat in 4/4 Time while doing that count '1 and 2 and 3 and 4' out loud. Tap your foot with it to help keep that time even and steady. (later, with a song, you'll want to use a metronome or music program to help keep time, very important).
With a simple chord rhythm chart that has lines for each strum of a beat, it would look like this -
G
////
What that's showing is to strum a G Major Chord for 4 beats, each slash equals one beat (and thus 4/4 Time).
Hard to graph slashes here, but to start out, I suggest a chord progression like this -
G Major - C Major - D Major - G Major
Play each chord in 4/4 time with a Downward strum only, a single strum on each beat like the slashes shown above. That's going to be 4 strums on the G chord, 4 strums on the C chord, 4 strums on the D chord, 4 strums on the G chord, ALL... downward strums.
The idea at this point is to move between those chord changes while playing those Downward strums evenly in time on the beat with NO... mistakes.
If you're just starting out on guitar, you know you're going to have to go very slow to do that without a mistake. If you had to stop in the middle of strums to find your chord fingering, no big deal at this point. Keep working at it while still doing those downward strums on the beats in 4/4. Eventually you'll get there. Slow down as much as you need to at first. (Close your bedroom door so you won't annoy your family, or they'll do it for you).
Upward Strum
Once you've got the hang of those downward strums on each beat in 4/4 for each chord, and doing it while KEEPING time, and changing chords, then you're ready to add Upward strums.
4/4 Time = 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, but this time, instead of just playing a Downward strum ON each beat, also add an Upward strum on each 'and', the part in-between the beats. That will mean 8 strums per chord, and it's still 4/4 Time you're doing, because all you're doing is strumming on the Backbeat (i.e., the 'ands').
After a while with practice, you should develop a lighter feel with your strum hand and arm, so as to not hit the strings real hard, learning to float the pic through in the strum without dropping it. Doesn't matter if you don't hit all... of the strings all the time at first, but defintely try to at this point. Does the sound of the rhythm flow evenly with the chords recognizable? that's the point.
Strum Only Part Of The Chord
When you get used to playing chord changes smoothly, start speeding up a bit, but still with no timing mistakes. Then try intentionally not hitting all the strings of the chord, but just enough strings to define each chord's sound, while keeping time with the rhythm flowing.
After a while, you'll HEAR what section of strings you really NEED to stress in the strum to define the chord sound your playing. That will also depend on WHERE you're playing the chord on the neck, and WHAT chord type it is.
For example, with a D Major chord played on the 2nd and 3rd frets on the bottom treble strings, no need to strum the 2 top bass strings. So you can place the 'meat' of your strum on the D chord down at the bottom 4 little strings. With a C Major Chord, the Root C note is on the 5th string - 3rd fret in the bass, so most often you don't really need to hit the low E bass or 6th top string. With an open G Major chord, I often add the 3rd fret - 2nd string note (a D note) to make it sound more full. In a Chord Diagram, if you see an 'x' on one of the strings, it means that string is not to be played. So you'll have to try and avoid hitting that string, or just muzzle it with either your fretboard hand, or your pick hand (see Palm Mute later here).
Learn The Chord's Bass Root Note
After a while when you get the hang of strumming chords with feel, you can then concentrate on hitting the bass note of the chord to stress it with the downward strum. For example, with an open A Major chord, the 5th open string is an A note. So intentionally hitting the strum on that A note will really define that chord's sound in rhythm playing. You'll find you can do this with most open style chords once you learn where their bass root notes are. And this will prep you for some specific music styles to come...
Maybelle Carter Style Rhythm
Maybelle Carter wrote a folk-country tune called Wildwood Flower back in the (1930's?). She originated a type of country rhythm playing that's still used today in country and folk music, and even in some pop and rock styles. What she did was to pick out bass line notes while strumming chords at the same time. Most of the bass line notes are already available within the open type chords, so most of the hard work is done with the pick-hand.
She would first pick the bass note and then immediately strum the chord, keeping the rhythm flowing without missing a beat. She was selective on which chords she would hit the bass note on, so a bass note was not sounded on each and every strum of the beat, just enough to define a singable bass line, kind of like this...
(dots = pause) - dum...dum-dum-dum...dum-dum-dum... d... dum-dum-dum
Here's an example on YouTube (the guy uses a Capo on his guitar, which you don't really need.)
Don't underestimate Maybelle's guitar pick style, you can do a whole lot with it in all guitar styles, even Jazz guitar. It should be in your guitar rhythm repitoire. One of things you should note he's also doing, is Hammer-Ons with some of the melody line notes. That's another technique for rhythmic variety, and it doesn't have to only apply to that Maybelle style.
Palm Muting
With an open C Major chord, again, you don't really need the low bass E string note in rhythm strumming, so you can simply muff (or mute) that 6th string with your pick hand palm. This means planting your pick hand palm slightly... on the top edge of the 6th bass string to muzzle it. And this also means a different pick hand strum technique, not the one I outlined before where you only plant your pick arm elbow on the guitar. Doing this Palm Mute technique assumes... you've already reached a point in your rhythm playing that you can easily strum chords accurately where they need to be strummed. It assumes you've reached a level of comfort with your rhythm playing.
This palm mute technique comes in handy with a lot of rhythm guitar styles, especially with pop and rock playing. With heavy metal style you couldn't survive without knowing how to do it, otherwise the amount of noise you'd make with sounding too many distorted chord strings would drown out the rest of the band, even in a Metal style genre (pictures of teens with distorted electric guitars gone wild with Garage Band here).
One effect with palm mute sounds really cool, and that's to very lightly... muff the majority of the strings slightly while hitting a chord. Notice I said 'very lightly' palm muff the strings with your pick hand palm. You still want the strum to sound but partially, only slightly muffed. It should produce almost a 'natural harmonic' sound for all the strings at one time the harder you hit the strings, a very cool and effective break in rhythm technique to use for rhythmic variety. (basis of one of the techniques used in the movie August Rush).
Here's an example of how to do a Palm Mute on acoustic guitar during a rhythm sequence:
If you use all downstrokes with a Palm mute for chords, you'll have one of the popular rock and pop rhythm styles still used today.
Palm Mutes For Blues
Acoustic or electric guitar, doesn't matter. Using an open E minor chord, you only concentrate on playing the top 2 or 3 bass strings of the chord. Use alternate rhythm strums while doing a palm mute, and play it like a rock n' roll lick. By that I mean, bar the 5th string - 2nd fret note and 4th string - 2nd fret note together, downward strum once only those two strings, hold it, and fret the 5th string - 4th fret note (C#) and strum once. Do this back and forth and you've got the basic rock n' roll and Blues shuffle rhythm. Do it while palm muting to add a popular Blues and Rock technique. The other chords for that Blues style would be A and then B7.
Another chord rhythm technique for Blues is to use the palm mute with Dom 9th chords during the song progression, or even with parts of the chords. The Dominant 9th chords with it give a specific sound though. Worth a try, as it will lead into Jazz comping styles also (i.e., playing rhythm quietly behind someone else's solo, or the vocalist).
Playing With Distortion
Once distortion is added to the electric guitar sound, palm muting becomes more important during rhythm, especially with harder sounding styles like Metal. The main thing with distortion is that you really... don't need to hit all the notes of the chord, just enough to define it. With some electric guitar styles using a lot of distortion, only a couple or three strings are used to define the chord. More than that often leads to discordance that doesn't add any more flavor. So this kind of palm muting technique requires that you actually SILENCE those strings you don't want to sound, while at the same time allowing the strings you want to fully ring out.
That's all I can think of right now. I'll maybe add some more techniques at another time.
Pick choice - use at least a Medium pick (plectrum) starting out. And you'll make mistakes at first, and will even drop the dang pick at times until... you get used to the 'feel' of how hard to strum the strings by lightly gliding through them to keep the pick in your hand. Using at least a Medium thick pic will make sure you're 'feeling' the strings, very important for beginners.
Downward Strum - most of the time you'll start off playing chords with a downward strum on the first beat of the song. This is the strum you want to practice with at first to get your timing down. So everything that follows this section is to be done with a Downward strum, starting on the top bass E string downward through the rest of the strings, medium-slow, trying to sound them all with one sweeping stroke. Plant your pick hand elbow on the guitar and move your whole forearm, with a somewhat soft wrist action. Let your wrist act as a shock absorber for the pick hitting the strings. (I'll assume you already know at least two or three chord fingerings at this point).
Another thing; Slow is Good, at this point if your a beginning guitarist. Slow means 'Solid' Technique which is essential to become a faster, smoother rhythm player later. And it's going to torment your fretboard hand a bit at first, but no pain, no gain. (Yet train, don't strain. Always rest your hands if you start to develop a cramp). If you're doing this with an electric guitar, turn off all distortion at this point, and turn the amp volume down so you can hear any mistakes.
Open Chords
An Open Chord is simply a chord fingering played within the first 3 frets, some of the strings left to sound open (not fretted). This is the most common type of beginning chords because they're easiest to learn to fret quickly and move from one to another.
Rhythm Timing
Some basic music time understanding needed at this point - a song is made up of bars, or measures. The song has a Time Signature usually marked at the left-hand corner of the first bar of the musical Staff, and stated as a fraction, like 4/4 or 3/4, or with just a letter C, which means Common Time or 4/4.
4/4 Time means each bar or measure is to have 4 Beats (four beats to each bar). The way I recommend you count 4/4 time in your head is to say... '1 and 2 and 3 and 4'.
Each number is a beat. Each 'and' is in between the beat. And for starters, on each beat is where you want to do a Downward strum on the guitar.
For Waltz time (3/4), it's 3 beats to each bar; the count is simply... 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, etc. A single downstroke strum for each beat is all that's often used, especially in Jazz and Western Swing and Country styles.
Downward Strum in 4/4
Do a Downward strum on each beat in 4/4 Time while doing that count '1 and 2 and 3 and 4' out loud. Tap your foot with it to help keep that time even and steady. (later, with a song, you'll want to use a metronome or music program to help keep time, very important).
With a simple chord rhythm chart that has lines for each strum of a beat, it would look like this -
G
////
What that's showing is to strum a G Major Chord for 4 beats, each slash equals one beat (and thus 4/4 Time).
Hard to graph slashes here, but to start out, I suggest a chord progression like this -
G Major - C Major - D Major - G Major
Play each chord in 4/4 time with a Downward strum only, a single strum on each beat like the slashes shown above. That's going to be 4 strums on the G chord, 4 strums on the C chord, 4 strums on the D chord, 4 strums on the G chord, ALL... downward strums.
The idea at this point is to move between those chord changes while playing those Downward strums evenly in time on the beat with NO... mistakes.
If you're just starting out on guitar, you know you're going to have to go very slow to do that without a mistake. If you had to stop in the middle of strums to find your chord fingering, no big deal at this point. Keep working at it while still doing those downward strums on the beats in 4/4. Eventually you'll get there. Slow down as much as you need to at first. (Close your bedroom door so you won't annoy your family, or they'll do it for you).
Upward Strum
Once you've got the hang of those downward strums on each beat in 4/4 for each chord, and doing it while KEEPING time, and changing chords, then you're ready to add Upward strums.
4/4 Time = 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, but this time, instead of just playing a Downward strum ON each beat, also add an Upward strum on each 'and', the part in-between the beats. That will mean 8 strums per chord, and it's still 4/4 Time you're doing, because all you're doing is strumming on the Backbeat (i.e., the 'ands').
After a while with practice, you should develop a lighter feel with your strum hand and arm, so as to not hit the strings real hard, learning to float the pic through in the strum without dropping it. Doesn't matter if you don't hit all... of the strings all the time at first, but defintely try to at this point. Does the sound of the rhythm flow evenly with the chords recognizable? that's the point.
Strum Only Part Of The Chord
When you get used to playing chord changes smoothly, start speeding up a bit, but still with no timing mistakes. Then try intentionally not hitting all the strings of the chord, but just enough strings to define each chord's sound, while keeping time with the rhythm flowing.
After a while, you'll HEAR what section of strings you really NEED to stress in the strum to define the chord sound your playing. That will also depend on WHERE you're playing the chord on the neck, and WHAT chord type it is.
For example, with a D Major chord played on the 2nd and 3rd frets on the bottom treble strings, no need to strum the 2 top bass strings. So you can place the 'meat' of your strum on the D chord down at the bottom 4 little strings. With a C Major Chord, the Root C note is on the 5th string - 3rd fret in the bass, so most often you don't really need to hit the low E bass or 6th top string. With an open G Major chord, I often add the 3rd fret - 2nd string note (a D note) to make it sound more full. In a Chord Diagram, if you see an 'x' on one of the strings, it means that string is not to be played. So you'll have to try and avoid hitting that string, or just muzzle it with either your fretboard hand, or your pick hand (see Palm Mute later here).
Learn The Chord's Bass Root Note
After a while when you get the hang of strumming chords with feel, you can then concentrate on hitting the bass note of the chord to stress it with the downward strum. For example, with an open A Major chord, the 5th open string is an A note. So intentionally hitting the strum on that A note will really define that chord's sound in rhythm playing. You'll find you can do this with most open style chords once you learn where their bass root notes are. And this will prep you for some specific music styles to come...
Maybelle Carter Style Rhythm
Maybelle Carter wrote a folk-country tune called Wildwood Flower back in the (1930's?). She originated a type of country rhythm playing that's still used today in country and folk music, and even in some pop and rock styles. What she did was to pick out bass line notes while strumming chords at the same time. Most of the bass line notes are already available within the open type chords, so most of the hard work is done with the pick-hand.
She would first pick the bass note and then immediately strum the chord, keeping the rhythm flowing without missing a beat. She was selective on which chords she would hit the bass note on, so a bass note was not sounded on each and every strum of the beat, just enough to define a singable bass line, kind of like this...
(dots = pause) - dum...dum-dum-dum...dum-dum-dum... d... dum-dum-dum
Here's an example on YouTube (the guy uses a Capo on his guitar, which you don't really need.)
Don't underestimate Maybelle's guitar pick style, you can do a whole lot with it in all guitar styles, even Jazz guitar. It should be in your guitar rhythm repitoire. One of things you should note he's also doing, is Hammer-Ons with some of the melody line notes. That's another technique for rhythmic variety, and it doesn't have to only apply to that Maybelle style.
Palm Muting
With an open C Major chord, again, you don't really need the low bass E string note in rhythm strumming, so you can simply muff (or mute) that 6th string with your pick hand palm. This means planting your pick hand palm slightly... on the top edge of the 6th bass string to muzzle it. And this also means a different pick hand strum technique, not the one I outlined before where you only plant your pick arm elbow on the guitar. Doing this Palm Mute technique assumes... you've already reached a point in your rhythm playing that you can easily strum chords accurately where they need to be strummed. It assumes you've reached a level of comfort with your rhythm playing.
This palm mute technique comes in handy with a lot of rhythm guitar styles, especially with pop and rock playing. With heavy metal style you couldn't survive without knowing how to do it, otherwise the amount of noise you'd make with sounding too many distorted chord strings would drown out the rest of the band, even in a Metal style genre (pictures of teens with distorted electric guitars gone wild with Garage Band here).
One effect with palm mute sounds really cool, and that's to very lightly... muff the majority of the strings slightly while hitting a chord. Notice I said 'very lightly' palm muff the strings with your pick hand palm. You still want the strum to sound but partially, only slightly muffed. It should produce almost a 'natural harmonic' sound for all the strings at one time the harder you hit the strings, a very cool and effective break in rhythm technique to use for rhythmic variety. (basis of one of the techniques used in the movie August Rush).
Here's an example of how to do a Palm Mute on acoustic guitar during a rhythm sequence:
If you use all downstrokes with a Palm mute for chords, you'll have one of the popular rock and pop rhythm styles still used today.
Palm Mutes For Blues
Acoustic or electric guitar, doesn't matter. Using an open E minor chord, you only concentrate on playing the top 2 or 3 bass strings of the chord. Use alternate rhythm strums while doing a palm mute, and play it like a rock n' roll lick. By that I mean, bar the 5th string - 2nd fret note and 4th string - 2nd fret note together, downward strum once only those two strings, hold it, and fret the 5th string - 4th fret note (C#) and strum once. Do this back and forth and you've got the basic rock n' roll and Blues shuffle rhythm. Do it while palm muting to add a popular Blues and Rock technique. The other chords for that Blues style would be A and then B7.
Another chord rhythm technique for Blues is to use the palm mute with Dom 9th chords during the song progression, or even with parts of the chords. The Dominant 9th chords with it give a specific sound though. Worth a try, as it will lead into Jazz comping styles also (i.e., playing rhythm quietly behind someone else's solo, or the vocalist).
Playing With Distortion
Once distortion is added to the electric guitar sound, palm muting becomes more important during rhythm, especially with harder sounding styles like Metal. The main thing with distortion is that you really... don't need to hit all the notes of the chord, just enough to define it. With some electric guitar styles using a lot of distortion, only a couple or three strings are used to define the chord. More than that often leads to discordance that doesn't add any more flavor. So this kind of palm muting technique requires that you actually SILENCE those strings you don't want to sound, while at the same time allowing the strings you want to fully ring out.
That's all I can think of right now. I'll maybe add some more techniques at another time.
