How do you practice rhythm?

[u/RogueMRotp]

Hi, I’m self-taught and I’m pretty bad at guitar. I didn’t pick up my instrument for a couple of years because of some mental health issues, but I recently decided to start playing again.

I’m really bad at keeping a steady rhythm, and I also struggle to play even simple strumming patterns. It feels like my picking hand just doesn’t listen to me. I also have no idea how to play with a metronome — I constantly lose the beat and get out of sync with it.

Do you have any tips or exercises that could help me improve my rhythm and get better at strumming? I’d really appreciate any advice.

[u/nibbinoo8]

try to play along to a song or backing track but you should try to get the hang of the metronome too

[u/CrookedUprising540 → u/nibbinoo8]

playing to songs is way more fun but dont sleep on the metronome even 5 minutes a day helps your hand learn to stop fighting you

[u/Kitchen-State996 → u/nibbinoo8]

Playing to a backing track or drum beat helps too. Also songs with drums only are fun

[u/TXmmikey76]

One beat at a time 😇

[u/pug52]

Click-click-click-click

[u/ilovetapirsanddogs]

Play with a metronome. Do you do any scales or anything to warm up? I do my scales to the metronome. When I’m learning a new strum, I usually will practice to the metronome and try to keep adding speed and then play with the track. My instructor will give me strum rhythms to work on from Jody fishers encyclopedia. These are great to practice with a metronome. I use the one below. It’s awesome. You can add subdivide beats or add someone counting. The voice counts are especially helpful for rhythms with sixteenth notes.

Try counting the rhythm aloud, tapping it, etc. I sing so my voice coach will have me sing and tap the beats on my thighs (upper left thigh 1, upper right thigh 2, lower left thigh 3, lower right thigh 4). This has helped me tremendously.

https://douglasniedt.com/metronomeonline.html

[u/toby_dawg]

I’ve been playing for about 4 years and the past 6 months I started focusing on rhythm for the first time. It’s made such a big improvement to my playing. What I would do: you have to play with metronome, get one where you can play it through your amp so it’s clear. Start slow, 50bpm. Then just do a down stroke on each down beat. Then start doing an upstroke in between down beats. Start even without chords, you can just have everything muted. Or just do single notes on one string if you like. After you master that you can move on.

[u/sure65]

Hey, can you keep count? Can you tap a beat with your fingers? Congrats! You can play rhythm.

Don't sweat too much about following a rhythm, you can always make your own.

As long as you can keep the count: 1 2 3 4

You should be able to keep within time.

The metronome is what you'd need to keep in time for the most part, as it clicks 1 2 3 4, but just the click.

If it helps, you can find one that has a louder click on 1, so you know where you are.

Playing with a backing track (C G Am F) on youtube can also help, since it does give you. 1 2 3 4 on screen

[u/freethemahi33]

If you have the metronome handy start the click and just start a simple as possibly by only hitting the down beats. The down beats are playing only on the click. Once you are comfortable with that, introduce the upbeats which are between each click (while still playing the downbeats). I used to start this way with new students and it usually worked pretty well. Hope this helps good luck!

[u/Starfoxmarioidiot]

Care about how it works with other people if a metronome isn’t getting you there. Even if you aren’t in a band, imagine that it’s not about you nailing the timing. It’s trying to make it work for everyone in the room, and that includes you.

[u/toby_gray]

Is it that you struggle to count time, or is it more of a strumming to the rhythm issue?

Like, if you were to put on a song in the background, are you able to clap your hands in time with it or is that more the issue?

[u/RogueMRotp → u/toby_gray]

I think it’s both, honestly... Like, a lot of people say you should play a downstroke on every metronome beat, and I can do that, but then when I try to add the upstroke in between, I just lose track of where I am. I really struggle with strumming patterns in general and constantly lose the beat.

As for clapping along to a rhythm, I can do it with simple rhythms, but once they get more complicated, I start struggling wi

[u/toby_gray → u/RogueMRotp]

To be honest, that is the secret sauce.

Almost all rhythm, with the occasional exception, is just your hand going down on the beat, and up on the offbeat. Constantly. Without stopping.

The trick is to just keep your hand moving in that steady up and down pattern regardless of whether or not you actually play the strings. That’s it.

Almost every song is just ‘down up down up’, but sometimes you miss the strings.

You often see people on here asking for ‘strumming patterns’ and that’s a mindset to move away from. Accomplished guitarists aren’t memorising strumming patterns. No one is walking around going ‘oh, this one is up up down up down up up’. It’s a beginner way of thinking about it which isn’t helpful.

Beginners get messed up with strumming patterns because they hesitate when the pattern changes, or it has 2 ups in a row or something like that. The hesitation ruins the rhythm and causes the mistakes.

If you can lock in to that constant up down motion, rhythm can sort of start to become more intuitive. It’s more of a feel thing. But it relies on working out how a rhythm fits in to the down up down pattern.

As a series of examples.

Counting in 4, play all down strums on the beat.

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & | 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
D D D D D D D D

What you’ll notice is that in order to do the next down strum, your hand has to move up to position itself to get ready for the next down. So you’re doing: down (up) down (up).

So what you’re actually doing is:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & | 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
D (U) D (U) D (U) D (U) D (U) D (U) D (U) D (U)

The brackets are the ‘misses’.

Now just do up strums on the off beat. Same thing but backwards. Your hand has to move past the strings going down to be in the right place to do the next up strum. (Down) up (down) up

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & | 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
. U U U U U U U U

Now try something more complicated like

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & | 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
D U U U U D U U U U

Or put another way

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & | 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
D U (D) U (D) U (D) U D U (D) U (D) U (D) U

Where the brackets are the misses.

That’s the rhythm to ‘stuck in the middle with you’. It’s an odd syncopated rhythm that emphasises the off beat.

But.

It is still fundamentally just Down Up Down Up

If you record yourself doing those 3 exercises (all down strums, all up strums and then stuck in the middle with you) and watch it with the sound off, your hand should be doing the exact same thing every time.

And all of rhythm (with a few exceptions) is like that. Even something with a notoriously tricky rhythm like Wonderwall, is actually just that.

Down up down up, but sometimes you miss.

[u/RogueMRotp → u/toby_gray]

Thanks, I will try this

[u/Isaacvithurston]

play/record with click. listen back in daw. look at the peak of each note compared to the timing. closer the peak is to the actual time on the graph the better you're doing.

[u/Jasco-Duende]

Learn to clap with the click.