How much time have you actually worked on your rhythm guitar skills vs.

A lot more in the last few years. At first, I tried to go straight to learning songs. Of course very recently, I have spent the large majority of my time on it. In our rock lead guitar clAss. Now I don't see rhythm and lead as being all that different in some ways.
 
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I have been really concentrating on my Rhythm skills the past few years. Learning inversions,practicing with a metronome or drum machine have all been part of it. For many years i just wanted to BURN,and my Rhythm skills suffered
 
The past few days I've been relearning a few things since I watched your "how to hold your pick" video. I slightly changed things around the way I hold my pick and now my rhythm technique needs a little work.
 
I played piano for years before guitar, and took up the drums and around the same time, so I had a pretty well-developed sense of time and have never had to spend too much time on that kind of things, and focused instead on new repertoire and techniques. But I did take years of flamenco lessons (hence the username, registered in '02), which pretty much is rhythm guitar, so...
 
Probably not enough as my recent thread about picking would suggest. :embarrassed: I did start off by learning pretty much all The Beatles songs (by ear) and Lennon was actually a great rhythm player I think. It's really not easy to get all the rhythmic nuances of something that sounds quite easy like on "I Should Have Known Better".
 
over the past year and a half, it's been my main focus of guitar playing (singing and rhythm playing at the same time).

I can't say that I've really practiced a solo in that time. I still noodle along and improvise solos when I have a chance but it's been mostly singing and playing guitar at the same time.

Now... moving forward, since we have three sets of material now and I'm playing electric on some, I'm starting to work solos in. With my band currently being a trio, those solos will have rhythmic components but I want to flesh out some of the songs we have with more interesting musical parts, intros, solos, and outros.
 
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A LOT since joining TRA. They gave me the usual blather about not making the distinction between lead and rhythm, but it quickly became clear that I would be doing the band a disservice if I took on much lead stuff. I mean, I'm not a bad lead player but Fabian is AWESOME. No need for me to bash out my mediocre skills when he can do so much better, so much more readily. So, I've put a ton of time into picking/muting and all if that instead.
 
I haven't.....mostly learning songs. When I do hear some rhythm passage that I have never played, I will work it out so that it is under my fingers and give it a try in some of the jams. Basically trying to make it my own. What is really cool though is when you get inspired and some magical thought happens on the spot. You then start to work it during your jam to make yours.

Leads are always - sing that melody line and play it.
 
I spent the first several years just playing acoustic and singing, so that worked out the rhythm thing pretty nicely before I became interested in soloing.
 
I no longer allow myself to differentiate between "lead" and "rhythm" playing. Back when I started playing guitar, it was widely accepted that as a player, you were one or the other. In fact, most rock bands had a lead guitarist and a rhythm guitarist.

I made the mistake of compartmentalizing myself as a rhythm player because I wasn't very proficient at lead playing. I think that turned out to be something of a psychological road block going forward for many years.

Once I freed myself from that notion, my playing blossomed in all areas.
 
OGG said:
I no longer allow myself to differentiate between "lead" and "rhythm" playing. Back when I started playing guitar, it was widely accepted that as a player, you were one or the other. In fact, most rock bands had a lead guitarist and a rhythm guitarist.

I made the mistake of compartmentalizing myself as a rhythm player because I wasn't very proficient at lead playing. I think that turned out to be something of a psychological road block going forward for many years.

Once I freed myself from that notion, my playing blossomed in all areas.
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I agree with this 100%. You either play guitar or you don't play guitar as far as I'm concerned. You don't need to be a virtuoso soloist but a musician should be able to make things work.

One reason why I asked this question is because I am getting more and more students in my studio who have played for 20-30 years who just can't play rhythm guitar and even if they've taken lessons it was never broached as something that actually needed to be taught. It's really bugging the crap out of me that people can take lessons for years and not know how to strum a song in time or even know the names of the chords they are playing.
 
Yeah, I can take a solo and I'm not afraid to, but there's a guy standing not that far away from me that can do it far better most of the time.

How the hell could one not learn that? I seriously don't get it. I've never taken lessons, save for the free ones you've posted that I've worked through, but I've always approached playing in time and learning chord names/structures as one of the basics that should be learned first. Maybe that's a function of guitar not being my first instrument and learning my first instruments in a school environment?
 
Jeremy said:
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How the hell could one not learn that? I seriously don't get it. I've never taken lessons, save for the free ones you've posted that I've worked through, but I've always approached playing in time and learning chord names/structures as one of the basics that should be learned first. Maybe that's a function of guitar not being my first instrument and learning my first instruments in a school environment?
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I think thats a big part of it. People who learn other instruments first have to read a little music and learn how to play rhythms. When guitar is their first instrument it turns into the path of least resistance, which is tab and fiddling around by rote repetition.
 
When I was trying to make the band thing happen, and working on song writing, I almost never practiced leads, and always worked on rhythm... Now days I just wank...
 
Its funny that this thread came back. I've noticed that my Rhythm guitar playing has really improved just with what I'm able to get done on this album vs previous studio efforts. My lead guitar playing (which I really do focus on more practice wise) has improved a lot but not nearly as much as I would have thought.
 
I don't think I work on ANYTHING enough, which I'm trying to remedy lately. I've been revisiting old Metallica and Sabbath songs since the rhythm work is so cool. My wife and I have both been relearning stuff like Iron Man together, but really working on copping the feel of every phrase. I know it sounds remedial, but there's value there. I'm going to try to cop some of those solos note-for-note too just for something different.
 

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