Many people learn rhythm/strumming as patterns (e.g. D-D-U-U-D, etc)
While effective, it also quickly leads into 2 catasthrophic outcomes in the guitarist:
a) stuck in a fixed pattern all the time, cannot break out of the “patterns” he learnt. Unlearning this habit is very tough!
b) cannot catch grooves or play in time
This section of theory hopes to bring across the importance of learning basic theory to understand rhythm.
Every musical notes are held for a certain duration. Mixing different notes with different durations will result in different sounds = music!
These are the basic time durations:
Whole Note Duration- hold a note for 4 full beats
Half Note Duration – hold a note for 2 beats
Quarter Note Duration – hold a note for 1 beat
i.e. 1 beat per metronome click
a.k.a “4 Beats”
| 1 2 3 4 | metronome
| 1 2 3 4 | play
8th Note Duration – hit 2 notes every beat (1/2 beat duration)
i.e. 2 beats per metronome click
a.k.a. “8 Beats”
| 1 2 3 4 | metronome
| 1 n 2 n 3 n 4 n | play
16th Note Duration – hit 2 notes every beat (1/4 beat duration)
i.e. 4 beats per metronome click
a.k.a. “16 Beats”
| 1 2 3 4 |metronome
| 1 e n a 2 e n a 3 e n a 4 e n a | play
A basic strumming pattern is basically derived from any of the above, but removing some beats within the measure. We’ll look into this in detail in later postings. Meanwhile, try to understand the various durations 🙂
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