Learn Rhythm Guitar Today

You will need to be able to play to a beat coming from outside yourself. Most people think that they can play okay without a metronome, but this is almost never true. You won't have a drummer or bass player to jam with every moment of the day so your metronome will be there to keep you in time. You can buy a metronome but the free ones you can download from the internet will be quite enough to help you to learn rhythm guitar.

The next most available way to keep in time is to play along with some music. You can buy or download free backing tracks or play along with a group with simple rhythmic songs like AC/DC. AC/DC's Malcolm Young is also a great guitarist to listen to and get pointers from. Another great guitar player with a strong rhythm sense is Johnny Ramone of The Ramones.

A rhythm guitar player needs to know his chords. You start with your basic open chords, move onto bar chords up and down the neck and then get into power chords. Power chords are the least demanding on your fingers and bar chords are the most demanding. Pay equal attention to both.

Power chords only make use of two or three strings which makes them a great friend to the new guitarist who wants to quickly start moving chords up and down the fretboard. Another great thing about power chords is that they can be used in both the minor or major keys. The only thing is you should not be looking for a mellow mood. Power chords are designed to send your audience home with a bad attitude.

If you don't have a chord book or chord charts, get some from the internet. If you have a reliable internet connection, you don't have to download them, just make chord folder in your bookmarks.

The basic tool of the rhythm guitarist is your collection of strumming patterns. Start by playing alternating up and down strokes. If you are playing in 4/4 time as most modern songs are, you can use down strokes for each beat and the up strokes can play the "and" in between, like:
One (and) Two (and) Three (and) Four.
You could use just one or two chords but it will be more beneficial for your rhythm playing technique if you use a basic twelve bar blues or the chords to a favorite song. The internet will be your friend once again if you want to find more strumming patterns for rhythm guitar.

Once you have some basic chords and you have practiced some up and down strokes, you will be in a position to start copying rhythm patterns from your favorite artists. No need to get too fancy, just try some blues and rock. Listen to the rhythm strumming, see where the down strokes occur.

If you love that chuggy metal sound you are going to have to learn some palm muting. First switch to the bridge pickup on your guitar. The strings are muted by the edge of your hand, just below the pinky. Rest the side of your hand on the strings and try plucking the open sixth string. When you have the sound right, switch to your neck pickup and see what sounds you come up with.
Do you want to learn to play the guitar? Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free is a constantly updated blog which contains all the resources you need for: learning to play solo guitar, how to learn guitar chords, how to learn to read and play easy acoustic guitar tabs, finding a free online guitar tuner, looking for free guitar lessons online, and how to learn guitar scales.