Rhythm Guitar Syncopation Studies - Guitar Lesson

Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar

By: Jimmy Rutkowski a.k.a. Professor Jim
www.RockHouseMethod.com
 

There are 19 audio tracks that are available for download that go with this lesson. See full track listing at the end of the lesson.

In this lesson I am going to show how to develop a strong sense of rhythmic playing. The member of the band who has the strongest feel and sense of rhythm playing is the drummer. That being the situation, I have taken syncopation studies for drum studies and used them to create syncopation studies for the guitar player.

Syncopation is a deliberate upsetting of the meter or pulse of a piece of music by shifting the accent to a weak beat or an off-beat. Sounds complicated but it isn’t at all. The key to getting this down is feeling the sixteenth notes. A measure of music in a 4/4 time signature in sixteenth notes would be counted:

1 E & Ah – 2 E & Ah – 3 E & Ah – 4 E & Ah

What we need to do in order to develop our sense of rhythm now is to start “scratch picking.” Scratch picking is nothing more than playing percussive strums across the strings. We accomplish this by laying our hands over the strings, and without pressing the strings down, strum the strings with our picking hand. This muted deadened sound is the scratch picking effect we are going for. Once we have the technique down we then start strumming the strings down, up, down, up, etc. While doing this say:

1 E & Ah – 2 E & Ah – 3 E & Ah – 4 E & Ah

Here is what this looks like in tablature:

Now let’s make this scratch picking a musical idea. We’ll start by adding a D dominant9th chord into the mix. This chord has a very funky bluesy vibe to it.

Here is the fingering of the D9 chord:

 

Now that we have our chord of choice and our scratch picking technique let us fuse the two together to make some syncopated grooves.

When doing these exercises keep your left hand in position of the D9 chord only do not press the strings down, let the fingers deaden the strings to create the muted sound only pressing when needed for the specific strum in the example you are playing.

Let us start with something simple and progress harder as we go.

That’s it for this installment. Next time we will start working on the off-beats. Get all 15 rhythms down cleanly. Your goal is to be able to play all of these with the play-along tracks. Make sure you count out loud as you play!! 

Until next time, keep rockin’ n’ rollin’!!

Professor Jim


Downloadable Track Listing:

Download all these Practice tracks for just $2.99. Yes I want the practice tacks.

1. Guitar Tuning Notes
2. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar #1 Scratch Picking
3. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #2
4. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #3
5. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #4
6. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #5
7. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #6
8. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #7
9. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #8
10. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #9
11. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #10
12. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #11
13. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #12
14. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #13
15. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #14
16. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #15
17. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Example #16
18. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Backing Track 100Bpm Example Length
19. Syncopation Studies for Rhythm Guitar Backing Track 100Bpm Extended Length
 
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