>> Now we're going to go through
some terminology and rhythmic notation that will help you
communicate how long you want your strumming patterns or the strummed nodes to last.
What you'll see is that there's different types of notes.
A whole note is going to last for four beats.
Most of our charts are going to be played in four,
four time or played in four. That's really important.
If I say to you,
I want you to play power chords on this song,
and I want you to play in whole notes,
you would know that what I'm saying to you is I want you to play on beat 1 of each bar,
and I want you to let it lasts for four beats.
This is what it would look like if I played four bars of
a D power chord and let everything last for a whole note.
A lot of times people want you to do that when your playing
baselines or when you're playing power chords because it gives the bass part,
especially if you don't have a bass player with you,
it gives you a really low part that last the whole time.
It's a very important part and it's really important that you
come in right on beat 1 each time.
What if you have a song like we've been playing with G,
D and A with that progression in which you have
two chords in the first bar and then you have a chord that lasts for an entire bar?
In that kind of rhythmic notation,
if you played each chord one time on beats 1 and 3,
you'd have what we call half-note.
It cuts that length of a whole note literally in half.
That would sound like this with those chords,
G power chord D and A.
it has that same effect as almost acting like
a bass part that holds the bottom of the song together.
If you want to add a little more movement to it,
you can play quarter notes,
which means you play one chord for each beat.
Say I'm doing that in this song that I just started to play with G,
D and A power chords.
It will sound like this; 1,
one chord on each beat.
If I bring out the strong beat,
I'm bringing out 1 and 3.
If I bring out beats 2 and 4,
I'm bringing out something called the backbeat,
which makes it a little groovier.
Here's what the strong beat brought up [MUSIC]
If I bring out the backbeat,
I'm going to try to just give that beats 2 and 4 a little more weight [MUSIC]
When a drummer plays they hit the symbol is called
the hi-hat on that two and four and so if you don't have
a drummer and you hit two and four with a little bit of a pop it'll
sound a little bit like you do to people who are listening for that percussion part.
If you want to give it even more motion,
what you're going to do is play an eighth note.
You're playing two notes per beat,
and we count them 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
When you're playing power chords,
you're always going to strum down.
But on the number is going to be a little stronger than
on the end than the in-between strum and it sounds like this.
I'll just play it on the D power chord
[MUSIC] If I counted
it I would say 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
On top of that, I'm going to try to hit number 2 and number 4,
a little bit more,
little bit more weight on them,
give a little more percussion,
little flick of my wrist and that'll bring out an accent there.
That accent's our backbeat.
Here I go 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 [MUSIC]
You'll recognize that,
I'm sure you've heard that in a bunch of songs it just gives a little bit of motion.
When you accent the backbeat,
it pulls us back a little bit.
It's a little bit groovier than when you accent what we call a strong beat 1 and 3.
You can mix them up as it fits for you.
You can try these rhythmic values in different ways.
I could play the chart we've been looking at with C,
G, A, and F for power chords.
I could say what I want to go 1 and 2,
really to bring out the backbeat even more.
That would sound like this,1 and 2,
now that's starting to get a little bit of a shape to it.
Understanding your rhythmic values and how they can translate into
strumming patterns really starts to help you give your rhythm guitar part some shape.
There are a couple of special indications that you'll
see in charts and what is called the hit.
That means you want to literally give yourself
a little more percussion on the note and then stop the strengths.
I'll play eighth notes in my power cord strum with a little bit of
a backbeat emphasis for two bars of
an A chord and then I'll get to the G power chord and I'll hit.
Here it goes 1 and 2 and 3 and 4
[MUSIC]
That's your hit,
just the [MUSIC] The other thing that you'll see is NC,
which means no cord.
It's a big rest,
is what we would call a whole rest.
You'll see in the notation that for every value that we've discussed,
there's an equal symbol that says don't play for this amount of time this value.
NC just means however long that bar is,
you don't play anything, no chord.
That's what it would sound like at the end of that phrase after the hit [MUSIC]
That's a lot of times where they take
a dramatic pause in a song or where maybe somebody plays
an electric guitar lick with the pentatonic scale or some riff
or something happens there so when you see NC you just stop all the strings.