Hi Lee, your books are terrific as is the site. Really helpful stuff.
My question is around timing & rhythm. I feel like I have no natural sense of rhythm and that whatever consistency and flow I achieve always comes from brute force effort and constantly feels like it’s going to slip away any moment. What’s the best way to develop an ear for timing and rhythm, and the “feel” for the hand and finger coordination needed to improve this weakest aspect of my playing? Even guitarists without a great repertoire or a ton of flashy skills sound great when they can play a nice steady beat and sustain it come what may.
I’d love to improve this basic skill before I dig too much deeper on the more technical stuff we talk about here – or at least give it 50% or more of my attention for a while. I am working more with a metronome these days, and it certainly helps. What else can I do to boost progress?
Just to add to this, I’m a lefty, but definitely most comfortable holding & playing a guitar right-handed. But my right hand is not as nimble as the left when it comes to rhythmic finger movements. I’ve always wondered if that’s what’s part of holding me back. I suppose if I did play lefty, I’d have a similar issue fretting, I dunno.
Hi Mike.
Some difficult questions to answer there.
Re: the left hand thing. The general consensus is left handed = play left handed. It’s not a fact though, just a general opinion. I guess the only people who can really answer that are those that have done both, I doubt there are that many. I’ve personally not seen evidence that proves or disproves it and I do know of one person that is right handed but plays a left handed guitar. He does just fine.
For the rhythm, it’s more difficult to answer. Might be best to work with a local teacher or somebody else who can observe and try to find a problem. I will however say try some experiments first to narrow down the problem and see if you can fix it.
NOT having a natural sense of rhythm I think is probably uncommon, although most of us need to (and should) practice our timing regardless. I have observed many times and played with many musicians who’s timing isn’t great and needs work (including my own). The main thing is to recognise it. A lot of people with sub-par timing don’t even realise it. I’ve not heard you play obviously but if you are being over-critical then a: that’s a good thing, b: you might not be as bad as you think.
Figuring out how good or bad your “natural” timing is can be done without a guitar. In fact it’s best done without a guitar. For example, if you can tap on your leg quarter notes with one hand and keep reasonably good time then you don’t have a problem with natural timing. This still might require some practice but will generally give you a better idea.
If you find you can keep good time tapping your leg (or on a table etc) with your left hand but not your right then you are starting to identify problems. This might be a good indicator that you should be playing a left handed guitar. It might also be that you can just practice more and improve it.
Once you can do this with quarter notes, then try eighth notes, triplets etc. Also tap to 3/4, 6/8 and 12/8 as well as 4/4. You’d be surprised just how many people still struggle with this but they don’t realise. All of these things need to be understood and practiced where needed.
Once you have done these things it’s time to put the guitar back in your hands to try narrow down further. First start with only the strumming hand and repeat all of the above. Put your hand over the strings with the fretting hand to dampen the sound. This will give a percussive sound so that you can better hear the rhythm.
If that’s all OK then start to play the guitar normally but first stick to 1/4 notes and all down strokes. Then try 1/8th notes making sure you are using strict up down strumming. Count while you are doing it. “One and two and three” etc. Down stroke on the beat and up stroke on the “and”.
What you are trying to achieve with all of this is to narrow down and find where the problem is. You might find that your timing suffers only when you change chords. If so, you’ve found your problem.
Keep doing things like this until you find a point where things start to break down. That’s the point where you need to focus and try to fix.
I go to a lot of open mics and see a lot of people playing guitar. Most of them I observe the most common problem is their strumming hand is all over the place and their up/downs get messed up. Although the up downs don’t need to adhere to a rigid set of rules, they do need to have some sort of consistency. Most people keep time on the down beat. If your strumming gets messed up and suddenly your main beat has switched from up to down then keeping time like this is a challenge for anybody, including the experienced. Being AWARE of it is the most important thing.
I watch people all the time where they have their strumming hand all messed up like this and they always have timing / rhythm problems. Trouble is they don’t realise it, they often don’t believe it and rarely do they try to fix it because all of the above is too “boring”.
Anyway, hope that gives you some pointers. Just break it down and see what you can find out. Feel free to come back and let me know how you get on, see what we can figure out.
Lee, thanks, this is helpful. I’m kinda committed to a right-hand guitar at this point – have messed around a long time and just now trying to put some more discipline into my practice. Keeping time in simple tunes is not bad – I started out learning ragtime fingerstyle, a slow process, but the alternating steady bass came fairly easily and stuck well. It’s more those pieces where there’s rests and chord phrasings that begin a measure on the off-beat that I really feel lost in. Willie Nelson’s ‘Home Motel’ is a great example of a slow piece that sounds like it should not be much trouble but is actually a timing minefield for me. Same with a lot of slow blues, once it strays off the beaten into creative territory.
Mike, I get the feeling you might not be as bad as you think.
The slow blues you are talking about, is this when you jam with others or do you have the same problem with jam tracks as well?
Let me tell you now, Willie Nelson can be a nightmare with timing. I’ve covered a few of his songs in the past and some of them I stop trying to replicate, just find my own way.
Some musicians are like this. What they do, they do well and it sounds great , but it can be a personal feel that they have going on which is not easy for others to just jump into and play along.
Dylan is the same, not so much with time keeping but amount of beats per bar, or amount of random extra bars can really throw you.
James Brown was apparently a nightmare.
All of these people work with top musicians and often these musicians have to get used to what they do, it doesn’t necessarily come naturally.
I have just had a listen to the Willie Nelson song, this version …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ74DwKazcQ
Two things to notice here.
The feel of the song is 6/8.
The pianist is all over the place. If I was playing in that band I would have to zone out of the piano because it would drive me insane.
Nothing necessarily wrong with it, but if you are trying to keep time in your head then you’d need to ignore the piano as much as possible and concentrate on another instrument, preferably the drums.
The 6/8 thing..
Even though there is not much going on that’s playing strictly 6/8 rhythms, this is definitely the feel of the song.
When playing along with this song try to keep the 6/8 going in your head. Try to feel the groove as 123 456 or just 123 123.
Unless this is what you are already doing, I think that this will help you a lot.
If this doesn’t make sense then let me know and I’ll try explain a bit more.
Thanks, Lee. You’ve been very generous with all this thought. Yes, I can keep the om-pah basic ragtime or blues beat – it’s when it gets “interesting” I struggle. And I’ve kind of surrendered to it as you suggest, just trying to work out what I can do.
Whatever the problem, it’s almost certainly fixable otherwise you wouldn’t be able to keep time on the ragtime. Keep at it and try to work out where it’s going wrong for you. Find one particular song you struggle with and use that to work with – try to keep time first without the guitar, just tapping. Go from there.
