Guitar Lesson: Rhythm Exercises With Mutes | Los Angeles or Skype Guitar Lessons with Vreny

Rhythm Exercises With Mutes.

I’ve written a lot of blogs lately on chords and scales, but have been neglecting rhythm a bit.
So here it goes!

First off: some music notation clarification.

Slashes represent chords.
You get a chord sound when you gently “squeeze” the strings against the frets.
X’s represent mutes.
Mutes sound percussive because you prevent the strings from vibrating after the string attack.
Mutes occur when you rest your fingers on the strings without pressing them down against the frets.

We all know these following exercises of course, which are really good to develop time feel and rhythmic coordination.

16th-note-displacement-exercises

Then there is also this fun rhythm, one of my favorites:

fun-rhythm-with-mutes

Here are a ton more rhythms with mutes to train your rhythmic reading.

Rhythms With Mutes

Every bar/line in the above pdf is 1 exercise that you would want to repeat for a while before moving on to the next bar/exercise. A fun way to practice these exercises is along with a drum beat.

But what I really wanted to get into, are the following exercises:

tough-rhythms-with-mutes

The lines numbered 1, 4 and 7 are the basic starting rhythm, followed by the same rhythm in the next 2 lines with mutes added.

Just to be sure you know how strumming works before you try to tackle this:

Exercises 1, 2 and 3 are strummed: down (miss) down up (on every beat, hence 4 times in a row)
Exercises 4, 5 and 6 are strummed: down up (miss) up (on every beat, hence 4 times in a row)
Exercises 7, 8 and 9 are strummed: down up down (miss) (on every beat, hence 4 times in a row)

Again: all muting happens in the fretting hand. Slash = squeeze strings against frets and X = lift up fingers so the strings move away from the frets but keep touching the strings.

Of all those exercise: you probably will find 5 and 6 the most challenging.

Most people find these REALLY challenging. 🙂
The main reason why most guitar students have a really hard time with the rhythmic coordination for these rhythms is that these rhythms combine odd and even events.

3 notes per beat = 3 events
alternating between mute – chord = 2 events

It’s a brain tease. 🙂
If you have a hard time with these, you want to practice them very slowly.

It’s very tempting for me to include a video here so you can hear these rhythms, but it’s been my experience with students that they miss out on part of the learning experience when they hear me play it, and then just copy me. It’s suddenly easier to play after you heard it once.

So if you really can’t get through it, and you feel you really need me to send you a video of me playing those rhythms, hit me up anytime at vreny@zotzinmusic.com. Also, shoot me an email if you have any questions or if you would like to book a lesson.

You’re on your way to becoming a great guitar player.
Have fun! 🙂

Conclusion

Hit me up anytime at vreny@zotzinmusic.com if you have any questions, or if you would like to book a lesson.

These free lessons are cool, but you will never experience the progress, joy, and results that my students experience in lessons when you’re learning by yourself from blogs and videos.

That is why people take lessons: way better results and progress, much more complete information, exposed to way more creative ideas than you can get from a blog or YouTube video.
There is only so much that self-study can accomplish.

If you want to see amazing results and progress in your guitar playing, buy your first lesson here and get started ASAP.