If rhythm feels like a mystery, this is a step-by-step way to go from no understanding of it whatsoever to having the basic concepts covered, so you can grasp the rhythm of pretty much any song you go on to play.
We're not getting into odd time signatures or polyrhythms. This is the groundwork: bars, quarter, eighth and 16th notes, triplets, and how to turn them into strumming patterns.
What a bar of music is ▶ 1:02
Music is divided into bars, which is surprisingly hard to define. So think of it this way. If you play a four-chord progression with one chord per bar, every time a new chord comes in you're starting a new bar. Most of the songs you'll play have four beats in a bar, and when people count along going "1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4", each "1" is the start of a new bar.
Quarter, eighth and 16th notes ▶ 2:06
These are called subdivisions, and they're just different ways of chopping up the bar.
- Quarter notes take up a quarter of the bar, so four fit in. You count them "1 2 3 4". If you're tapping your foot along to a song, you're probably tapping quarter notes.
- Eighth notes are twice as many. You put another beat exactly halfway between each quarter note and call it "and": "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and". Make sure you do the last "and", don't just stop on 4. That gives you eight.
- 16th notes split each quarter note into four, giving 16 in the bar. You count them "1 e and a, 2 e and a, 3 e and a, 4 e and a".
When you play eighths or 16ths, it helps to emphasise the numbered beat by hitting it slightly harder. So with eighth notes you lean on every other strum, and with 16ths you lean on one in every four.
Step 1: Quarter notes, counted out loud ▶ 4:19
Before you even turn the metronome on, just strum "1 2 3 4". Count out loud while you do it. You can't do it in your head, because you don't know if what you're counting lines up with what's happening on the guitar. Out loud, you'll hear it straight away if your voice and your strum aren't happening at the same time.
For all of this, mute the strings with your fretting hand rather than holding a chord, so you get a very obvious clunk every time you hit them.
Then put on a metronome. I start at 70 BPM and hit the strings on every click. If that's a struggle, count along with the click first, then tap your leg, then go back to the guitar.
Now build it up in steps of 10 BPM until you get to 200. That might sound like a lot, but it's all relative. With the click going it feels fast, but your strumming hand isn't thrashing away. It's a fairly arbitrary target, but a good one.
Step 2: Eighth notes by halving the tempo ▶ 7:05
This is where things get interesting. Take the 200 you were just playing at and halve it to 100, but keep playing exactly what you were playing. Now there's half as many clicks, so you're strumming on every click and bang in the middle between each one. Those are your eighth notes: "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and".
If you can't hear where the "and" goes, the Metronome Beats app I use has a clicks per beat setting. Set it to two and you'll hear the eighth notes. Use that as your measure, then turn it back to one and try to copy it.
You can downpick all of this to start with. Quite often it's only 16th notes where you really have to alternate. But as you get faster you'll find down, up, down, up easier, and alternate strumming is a good thing to practise anyway.
If eighth notes won't click, try the offbeat [8:33]
Set the metronome to 100 (or a bit slower) and only hit the strings in the space between the clicks. The click is the downbeat and the gap is the offbeat. At first you'll probably react a moment after each click, but as you get comfortable it's actually easier to land bang in the middle. And if you can do this, not only do you understand where the beats fall, you can now play a bit of reggae.
Then build the eighth notes up the same way, 10 BPM at a time, towards 200. Around 150 and above you'll want to alternate your strumming. Mumford & Sons strum faster than that, so it's not ridiculous, but the number matters less than the understanding. You could argue 175 or 180 is enough.
Step 3: 16th notes ▶ 11:17
Same process again. Drop from 200 down to 100 and keep playing exactly what you were playing with your eighth notes. Now you're strumming four times for every click: "1 e and a, 2 e and a". Set clicks per beat to four if you need to hear it. It sounds pretty nasty, but that's it.
Getting 16th note strumming to 200 is going to be really hard, so just build it as fast as you can comfortably go. For me that's somewhere around 130 to 140. Any faster than that for strumming is pretty ridiculous.
If you struggle at any point, slow down and count along, or say a four-syllable word in time with the beat.
Step 4: Triplets ▶ 14:19
There's one more you need. It's less common than the others, but it does come up quite a lot. So far you've split each click into one, two and four strums. Triplets split it into three.
Set the metronome slower, around 75, and strum three times per click. The word is easy for this one: just say "tri-pl-et" along with it, or count "1 2 3, 1 2 3". Set clicks per beat to three if you need to hear it, then build up the speed the same way.
Once you've got the basic concepts of rhythm, it's a bit like riding a bike. It does tend to stick.
Your progress won't be in a straight line, and you'll have days where you feel like you've gone backwards. As long as it trends upwards, you're doing fine.
Turning it into strumming patterns ▶ 15:22
Most of the time, you don't create rhythm by stopping and starting your strumming hand. You create it by missing the strings on certain strums while your hand keeps moving.
Strum "1 2 3 4" down, up, down, up and there's no real rhythm. Miss strum two, still doing the upstroke motion, and a rhythm appears.
Practise missing each one in turn, before the metronome comes back on:
- Miss 4: "1 2 3 miss". The easiest.
- Miss 2: "1 miss 3 4". Missing upstrokes feels natural, like you're just bringing your hand back up.
- Miss 1: "miss 2 3 4". Harder, because missing a downstroke feels very deliberate.
- Miss 3: "1 2 miss 4".
Then map them onto the metronome. Do "1 miss 3 4" as quarter notes at 100 BPM and build towards 200. Then do it as eighth notes, where you'll play the group of four twice to fill the bar. Then as 16ths, with the metronome down at about 80 and the pattern repeated in every beat. The Strum Trainer is handy for this too.
Accents [18:38]
Now repeat the whole thing, but instead of missing a strum, hit all four and emphasise a different one each time. We naturally lean on beat 1. Try leaning on 2, then 3, then 4, as quarters, then eighths, then 16ths. This is your dynamics, and it's a different element of your playing.
You can do both with triplets too. Beat 1 then alternates between a downstroke and an upstroke, which makes it a bit more challenging.
Applying it to songs ▶ 20:16
Once you can do all that, play along with real songs. Count "1 2 3 4" and strum quarter notes with downstrokes, then double up to eighth notes, then 16ths, all over the same track.
Tips that make it easier ▶ 21:49
- Keep your strumming motion wide. Big strums, not tickling the strings with the wrist. Record yourself to check.
- Strum robotically. Your hand is either above the strings or below them, never hovering in the middle. You want a clear clunk every time you go through.
- Get out of guitar player mindset. You're just moving your arm in time, and the strings happen to be in the way. Respond to the rhythm rather than trying to understand it before it happens.
- Listen for the snare drum. It's the one that goes crack, normally on beats 2 and 4, where you'd clap along.
- Slow songs down to 50%. Use YouTube or something like Songsterr or Ultimate Guitar Pro, where you can turn on a metronome under the tab. If you find 50% harder than full speed, that's a hint your timing isn't as solid as it should be, and you're playing from memory.
That matters because drummers push and pull unless they're playing to a click, and you want timing solid enough to move with them.
So start with quarter notes at 70 BPM, counting out loud, and work your way up 10 BPM at a time. Have a go.
