4 Tricks for Beginner Guitarists to Enjoy Your Listening
A Life / / January 06, 2021
Alexey Chesnokov
Author-musician, person of many interests.
Novice guitarists often face the same problem - they are not interesting to listen to. This is largely due to the monotony of the repertoire and the meager supply of playing techniques. Here's how you can make your songs more interesting with simple rhythm tricks.
1. Play smoother
Strongly "floating" rhythm in the playing of beginners is a frequent phenomenon. This can ruin any positive aspects of the performance, as it prevents the listener from enjoying music.
The instructors advise playing along with the metronome, and this method really helps to level the playing. However, this activity is quite boring, not everyone can do it for a long time.
A more fun method is to play with a drum loop. A loop is a looped piece of music, in our case a piece of a drum part. You can create such loops yourself in sequencers like Guitar Pro, FL Studio or Reaper. You can find ready-made ones - for example, use the Loopz application.
Price: Free
Price: Free
It is always better to start an exercise with a warm-up. Then we select the song that we will "align", select the appropriate beat for it, set the desired tempo. It is best to set the tempo at a slower pace at first so that it is easier to get used to the pulsation as you play. Then we gradually increase the tempo to the desired one.
Practice for a week and you will notice an improvement in the quality of your game.
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2. Play dead notes
"Dead" notes sound when we hit muffled strings. In fact, this gives us a new percussion sound that emphasizes rhythm and accents. It can be effectively used when playing in combat.
An example of playing "dead" notes
The exercise for practicing this simple trick is very simple: with your left hand, muffle all the strings, and with your right, start playing up and down. Count each beat in parallel to eight. Take your time, play at a medium pace.
Once you master this technique, you can complicate the exercise. Now for each count you must play an Am chord, the remaining seven counts remain dead (see. picture).
After mastering, add an Em chord to the count of five. When this is successful, you can substitute the chords of the song that you are already playing instead of the Am and Em chords.
You can substitute chords on any of the accounts, not just on "one" and "five". You can also expand the picture of the battle. For example, try this: in the first eight, play Em for one and two, Am for five and eight, and in the second eight play C for one and B for five, six and eight".
This exercise can be made infinitely more difficult, getting new musical pulsations. By the way, it is useful to practice it with a metronome or a drum loop.
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3. Accent correctly
Beat accent is a very important tool for creating the beat that the musician wants. For the listener, however, this is a kind of starting point that does not allow to get confused in the musical flow.
An example of playing different accents
Beginning musicians instinctively emphasize the downbeat, that is, the beat on the count of five. But it often happens little or nothing, so it's important to practice making a steady, clear focus.
To create it, you need to hit the strings a little harder than the rest of the beats. The accentuated beat will sound brighter than its equivalent dead notes or chords. Start practicing your accent along with the drum loop and then with the added chords.
The emphasis doesn't have to be on the five. Try to move it: for example, play it on "one", "four" and "seven", or "three" and "seven". Or accentuate every even or odd eighth altogether. These experiments will allow you to find new and unexpected rhythms.
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4. Remember you are a composer
This is an important thing that even experienced musicians forget about. You are the master of the sound that comes out of your hands. Each of your decisions is an artistic technique that has its pros and cons.
For example, you can take the song "A Star Called Sun" by the "Kino" group, and play it in one beat and at the same volume. And you can play all three verses in different ways. The first one will be played using arpeggio, which is also called brute force. In the second, we will add a fight with "dead" notes. We will play chords on the count of "one" and "eight". And we will perform the third verse by striking with an accent of the strong beat and without "dead" notes. Play this way, and you will feel the volume and tension increase with each verse.
There are several options for how to deal with the accumulated tension towards the end of the song. You can "blow up" it by playing the last bars very loudly, or you can pump it up further: for example, on the last line, suddenly switch to quiet brute force and finish.
This is the composer's skill - to create tension and skillfully deal with it.
It won't take long to learn these simple tricks, but it will be a big step towards sounding interesting. The best way to master this material is to use it in the songs you already play. Happy practice!
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