teaching rhythm

O.K. this is how i learned. Have her hum a patern, then take a few chords that fit the the pattern, then play downstrokes(because they are easier) to fit that pattern. As simple as that. This will probably be simpler than following your pattern because it came from her own head.

You have to be a Catholic to teach rhythm (sorry, even though it may offend some, I couldn't resist that one). :lol: :lol:

I'm having that same problem with a student, but it isn't a "feel" problem. It's that she is a classically trained flute player. Of course, in classical music they write out the rhythms, and it has to be the exact same thing, every time. Also, they have this obsession with playing it perfect every time. She's terrified to improvise in any sense, even if it's just making a strumming pattern. Did anybody run into this before when teaching a student? I'm sorta at a loss for what to do.

Looks like two separate student problems, huh? Well, I'll do one suggestion in two parts.

Making music is complicated stuff for some people, and the feedback you get from the instrument can overload some folks... I dunno why. They're bright people (and many will ultimately be fine guitarists) they're just wired differently for learning.

So part 1: when you're learning to play something, you get immediate feedback from the instrument. You hear bad notes and all... and it throws you. So when you're working with strumming hand rhythm, get rid of the sound. Have her lay her fretting hand across the strings so all she gets is a nice reliable thumping noise no matter what she does with the strumming hand. Removing pitch - treating the guitar like a percussion instrument - usually does the trick in breaking the hesitation barrier in strumming.

Part 2: what to play when you want to create a pattern... play your name. Say it, play it. a-MAN-da.... or ENG-el-bert-HUM-per-dink... or whatever. Then try saying it differently, different pace between the syllables. Say it, play it. Then go to other sentances, Robert Service poems, whatever. That builds the idea that you can use the guitar to actually say something.

Part 1 I've used with good success for years. Part 2 I just copped from an article on Bob Abrahmson - the eurythmics professor at Julliard. His job is to teach precise classical musicians how to make music worth listening to by making their instruments speak. :)

How long has your student been playing? How long did it take you to develop a sense of rhythm when you began playing? I've only been playing about a year and a half and I remember clearly that it took me six months of daily practice before the rhythm light came on. I say light because that is what it was like. I was playing with my playing partner/instructor one night and we both noticed at the same time, hey Tims got rhythm. I believe unless you are very gifted, rhythm can take varying amounts of time to develop and some people may never get it. I think comfort with the guitar is needed for rhythm. That requires muscle memory which requires time and practice imo.

I've found that folks who are missing the strumming timing thing, as you mentioned, just tend to be a little rhythm deficient. Two simple things usually help.

1. Get them to play to a metronome, always, and for a week or two, focus on that beat and how the melodic notes are falling in relation to that when they listen to popular music.

2. Depending on the person, give them a "drum lesson". Just set them up on my drums and have them find the down beat while I strum simple patterns. I'd say 80% of people aren't confident enough to do this, but for one of the students I was working with, it totally turned him around musically: actually explicitly creating the beat in a song helped him understand rhythm in a more natural sense, it helped him "feel it" which is really what I'm going for with strumming.

I have to admit though, Tom's suggestion of strumming muted notes... I'm definitely going to steal that.

Thanks for those tips guys.
I've already tried the total string muting technique with little success; I think what I might do next time is a sort of drum lesson where I will get my student to listen to a CD and tap out rhythms on the guitar body. Because tapping on a guitar requires zero skill, this could be a way of instilling more of a sense of rhythm which will hopefully be translated to the strumming.

What I did was to get my electric guitar and not plug it into the amp, I would take like the F chord and go up and down the neck listening to a song not worrying about if I was using the right chords or not but listening to the Rythym and beat and I would just keep practicing like that without the amp plugged in I didn't notice as much about what chords were being used I just kept focused on strumming to match the song in time I got the hang of alot of songs, then when I learned more chords and which ones go with what key I would plug my guitar in my amp and could always match the strumming so all I had to do then was to learn the right chords for the song after time worked out very well for me.

:D

You have to be a Catholic to teach rhythm (sorry, even though it may offend some, I couldn't resist that one). :lol: :lol:

Hey greybeard, I was baptized Catholic, does that count? :P