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Cool Rhythm Tricks

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Once you have the basic strumming and picking patterns down you can have some fun experimenting with the rhythm to come up with interesting, and sometimes just plain cool, stuff to enhance your playing and singing.

The Pinch

The pinch is a fingerstyle-specific technique that works well as a stand-alone concept or as a lead in to "Travis Style" guitar.

The pinch, as its name implies, is simply playing two strings at the same time with your thumb and your index or middle finger in a sort of pinching motion. The thumb is picking down and your finger is picking up. Which fingers you use really isn't an issue.

pinch

An easy way to get started is to play a pinch followed by a strum.

pinch-strum

When you add the pinch to the Carter strum you can get some interesting effects.

pinch-carter strum

Most of the time your bass strings on the pinch will go back and forth with the "root five" pattern, but you can play the pinch on any strings.

Another cool use for the pinch is to play it between notes.

The pattern tabbed out here features a pinch followed by a single note. I suggest using one of your fingers for the single notes rather than your thumb. Run through this a few times until you can play it at a steady rhythm and then we can play a cool scale with alternating bass lick.

If we take the same little scale pattern we were using in the fretting Exercises chapter and blend it into this pinch/single note/pinch pattern we get a really neat sound from the scale being played against an alternating bass.

scale with alt bass

Once you can do this out of open G try it with your barre chords. It's a great way to get ready for the country, ragtime and blues material we will be covering in Volume Two, and it's one of those little licks you can play on the front porch and convince your neighbors that you are a way-cool guitar guy or gal.

The Bump-a-dit-ty

We figured out the Carter Strum by taking a two quarter note strum and cutting the second quarter note in half. That's cool, but we don't have to leave that first quarter note alone. We can cut that note in half and play a string of eighth notes.

You can play this with your fingers or with a flatpick. If you are using a flatpick for this lick keep in mind that we are now playing a string of eighth notes so we have to start picking up and down.

bump-a-dit-ty

Chopping & Vamping

Chopping and vamping are techniques that you can use in your rhythm playing. Chopping is a variation of strumming. When strumming in 4/4 time you might simply play four quarter note strums counting 1-2-3-4

four quarter note strum

When you chop the idea is not to play anything for the 1 and the 3 count of the measure. So you would play: rest-strum-rest strum or 1- chop 2- chop.

chop

You are still playing a 4/4 time rhythm but it feels a little bit different. Chopping creates a sort of tension behind the music. This is one reason that bluegrass mandolin players use the technique so much.

You may notice that the chop sounds kind of goofy with an open chord on your guitar because the strings keep ringing. A way to enhance the chop is to play closed position chords along with a left hand technique called vamping.

To vamp a chord let your fingers lighten up and return to the strings right after the strum. This cuts the ringing of the chord short.

Mixing Things Up

As you get comfortable with the basics you can start mixing picking patterns. For example, the pinch and the bump-a-dit-ty work well together.

mix ex 1

You could use the pinch to accent a measure or phrase in the music.

mix ex 2

In fact, you can mix up these patterns into anything you want.

mix ex 3

The trick is to shape the rhythm to suit the effect you want while still keeping the timing of the measure within the boundaries set by the time signature. In a lot of ways the only difference between musical styles like a sad honky-tonk country song and a ragtime blues guitar solo is how you treat the rhythm and phrasing of the measures. Experiment with all of the picking patterns we have gone over here and try mixing them up to change the way a song feels.

Arpeggios

An arpeggio is simply a chord played as single notes rather than strummed.

Arpeggios

This is a great technique to use with chord progressions. Playing an arpeggio for one measure each of a chord progression like Am, C, D, F will give you a sound that kicked off more than one 60's garage band. Playing an arpeggio while playing a G, B, C, A, G, C, D chord progression will give an effect like the piano in the oldies rock favorite Sea of Love.

Harmonics

Harmonics or "chimes" are loud resonant notes made by lightly touching a string just over the fifth, seventh or twelfth fret. The trick is that when I say lightly I mean lightly touch the string. You don't want to put much pressure on the string. Just touch it directly over the fret.

You can use harmonics as single notes or as barre chords. If you make a barre chord harmonic over the fifth fret it is essentially a C chord. Over the seventh gives you a D chord and at the twelfth . . . (remember our barre chord chart?) Right again! You get a G chord. Try playing an arpeggio while holding your finger over the twelfth fret harmonic for a neat effect.

Putting It All Together

"My Grandfather's Clock" is a great song to try playing with a mix of different techniques and picking patterns.

My Grandfather's Clock 4/4 Time Key of G

G                  D            G             C
My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf
       G        D            G
So it stood 90 years on the floor.
                 D            G           C
It was taller by half than the old man himself
       G             D           G
But it weighed not a pennyweight more
                                  D              G
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born
                                   D
And it was always his pleasure and pride
        G       D     G             C
But it stopped short, never to run again
          G   D   G
When the old man died
Chorus:
G                C      G
90 years without slumbering (tic toc, tic toc)
G                C    G
His life second numbering (tic toc, tic toc)
G              D      G            C
But it stopped short, never to run again
         D    G  D
When the old man died

In watching it's pendulum swing to and fro
Many hours he spent as a boy
And in childhood and manhood
the clock seemed to know
And to share in his pleasure and joy.
For it struck 24 when he walked through the door
With a blooming and beautiful bride
But it stopped short, never to run again
When the old man died

Now my grandfather said that of those he could hire
Not a servant so faithful he found
For it wasted no time and it had but one desire
At the end of each week to be wound
And it stayed in its place not a frown upon its face
And its hands never hung by its sides
But it stopped short, never to run again
When the old man died

The only tricky thing about this song is the chorus. The word slumbering is played as a half measure of C and a half measure of G. In the last line of the chorus old, man, and died are each held for a full measure.

You have a lot of options when it comes to working out an arrangement of this song. For example, you can play the chop through the chorus or maybe an arpeggio. For the "tic-tock" you can come up with something at the twelfth-fret harmonic using single notes, strumming or arpeggios.

The trick isn't to play this the way you think I play the song or how somebody else plays it. You have to experiment a little bit and come up with something that fits your own vision of the song but still makes musical sense.

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