Rhythm Guitar - Your First Step To Vituosity

You have to crawl before you can walk, walk before you can run. You can't just pick up a guitar with no prior experience and play Through the Fire and Flames, you have to learn to play first. Your fisrt step in learning is rhythm guitar. Lets' start with a basic warm-up, then move onto chords.

Warm-up 1

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
B|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
G|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|-------------------------------------0-1-2-3-4-3-2-1-0--------------|
A|-------------------0-1-2-3-4-3-2-1-0--------------------------------|
E|-0-1-2-3-4-3-2-1-0--------------------------------------------------|

e|-------------------------------------0-1-2-3-4-3-2-1-0--------------|
B|-------------------0-1-2-3-4-3-2-1-0--------------------------------|
G|-0-1-2-3-4-3-2-1-0--------------------------------------------------|
D|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
A|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
E|--------------------------------------------------------------------|

Your first chords are going to be basic, D C G A E F and Em.

D

e|-2-|
B|-3-|
G|-2-|
D|-0-|
A|---|
E|---|

C

e|-0-|
B|-1-|
G|-0-|
D|-2-|
A|-3-|
E|---|

G

e|-3-|
B|-0-|
G|-0-|
D|-0-|
A|-2-|
E|-3-|

A

e|-0-|
B|-2-|
G|-2-|
D|-2-|
A|-0-|
E|---|

E

e|-0-|
B|-0-|
G|-1-|
D|-2-|
A|-2-|
E|---|

F

e|-1-|
B|-1-|
G|-2-|
D|-2-|
A|---|
E|---|

Em

e|-0-|
B|-0-|
G|-0-|
D|-2-|
A|-2-|
E|---|

After you can play these, you can move onto more difficult things, like rhythm riffs and sustained notes. First, sustained notes.

D sus.

e|-3-|
B|-3-|
G|-2-|
D|-0-|
A|---|
E|---|

A sus.

e|-0-|
B|-3-|
G|-2-|
D|-2-|
A|-0-|
E|---|

You can also alter these notes another way.

D unsus.

e|-0-|
B|-3-|
G|-2-|
D|-0-|
A|---|
E|---|

A unsus.

e|-0-|
B|-0-|
G|-2-|
D|-2-|
A|-0-|
E|---|

Now that you can sustain notes, you can make up your own riffs goin from sustained to normal to unsustained, then back to normal, then sustain. The possibilities are endless.

Now you know the basic chords, and sustained notes, you can move onto playing rhythm guitar riffs. Here's the rhythm for "Sweet Home Alabama"

e|-2--0--3--3-|
B|-3--1--0--0-|
G|-2--0--0--0-|
D|-0--2--0--0-|
A|----3--2--2-|
E|-------3--3-|

Once you master that you can go onto a bit harder song,, how about the chorus of Foghat's song "Slow Ride".

e|-0-0-2-1-0-|
B|-2-2-3-0-2-|
G|-2-2-2-0-2-|
D|-2-2-0-2-2-|
A|-0-0---3-0-|
E|-----------|

Now, you've mastered the rhythm to 2 classics so now you can move onto a legendary song, "More Than a Feeling".

e|------------3-----2-----------------------------------------|
B|------3--------3-----3----------3---------3-----------3-----|
G|---------2--------------0---------0---------0---------------|
D|---0--------------------------------------------------------|
A|-----------------------------3----------2-------------------|
E|----------------------------------------------------3-------|

So, you can now play three great songs, know some new rhythm guitar chords, and can go out in the world and rock and maybe some day, can pick up a guitar and play Through the Fire and Flames.

Comments

[spundun]

The cords are not "sustained" cords, they are "suspended" cords.

[Invokke_Havokk]

What spundun said...and a few of your chords are wrong... missing 0's, etc.

[adiayt]

cmon dude u gotta post somtin btr than this

[Blas3]

F chord is not 1-1-2-2....
and please don't try to teach guitar from scratch to pro in one lesson. You should have done one for chords, one for advanced chords, one for rythm, and so on...