With the vast majority of guitar instructional material you see on the the internet (and in pre You Tube material as well) the emphasis has been on two of the three elements of music, melody and harmony. The third element, rhythm, usally is given the short shift of attention. Even when the the subject is rhythm guitar, I more often see things chord voicings covered than the actual rhythmic concepts. Maybe it’s easier to just say “if this chord then play that scale” or to show ten ways to play a E minor chord than it is to discuss more abstract concepts of rhythm and groove. While I have noticed in more recent instructional material giving more space to improving one’s rhythm chops, I find it often pays to look beyond guitar-centric material to really zero in on the subject.
Below are a series of videos from a playlist called Perfecting Rhythm, put together by Saher Galt. The video series starts with teaching you to internalize small common rhythmic figues and moves on to topics like syncopation, polyrhythms and building complex rhythms from simpler ones. A subject as vast and complex as rhythm is not going to mastered by the act of simply watching a bunch of you tube videos. Like any real skill, it requires practice and I think that watching and working with these videos would be a big help to anyone who wants to improve that area of their playing.
Play any RHYTHM easily – perfect your timing and sight reading!
Syncopation made easy! Interactive RHYTHM training.
Play any POLYRHYTHM easily with this trick! (Interactive rhythm video)
Four against three (4:3) POLYRHYTHM practice!
Decoding Rhythm: how to play rhythms that seem hard (but really aren’t)
Saher Galt also has a number of You Tube tutorial video series, covering things like singing tips, how to make music (including building a studio, recording, mixing and mastering) and perhaps most importantly, cat videos. Please check them out.
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