How Can I Improve On Rhythm Guitar?

Time and practice.

Practice practice practice.
Learn your scales. Use a click!

Listen to Keith Richards and John Lennon.

Master All My Loving and the rest will be a piece of cake

Can you hold a beat? Serious? Are you able to hand pat a 4/4 rhythm.


You should pick up a metronome to help you keep a beat.

Amazon - Metronome - All you need.

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Can you hold a beat? Serious? Are you able to hand pat a 4/4 rhythm.

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I appreciate all the replies. Yes, I can hold a beat and I practice a lot as I'm being advised to here. I know where most of the chords are up to the F on the 8th fret and G on the 12th.

What I'm really wondering is if there's anything that could help me improve my wrist action and help me vary my rhythm patterns.

When I have a student who struggles with rhythm, I keep everything basic for a long time. Start with quarter notes, all downstrokes, counts 1…2…3…4…repeat. You should be using mostly wrist, but a little arm movement, too. Then, take out one of the quarter notes: 1…2…3…(rest)…

The key is to not rush through the rest, so everyone telling you to use a metronome is right. Better yet, YouTube a drum backing track and play along with that. Like this one LINK. One thing you’ll notice about the drum beat, the snare hits on counts 2 & 4. Your rhythm should also have a slightly emphasized attack on those counts (at least while you get the basics down).

Then move on to 8th note rhythms, which will use upstrokes. The counts are 1.&.2.&.3.&.4.&. with the 1 2 3 4’s being downstrums and all the &’s being upstrokes. So, your rhythm should sound twice as fast as when you were playing quarters.

Btw…the reason we use our wrist is to change the angle of pick so it glides over the strings more proficiently…which is huge in guitar playing. No wasted motions.

Then, start taking the &’s out one at a time like: 1…2.&.3.&.4.&. making sure you’re arm motion is steady and consistent. You should focus on down up down up down up down up regardless of the rhythm that you’re using. So, for this rhythm, you’ll go down, down up down up down up.

Continue taking &’s out…ie 1.&.2.&.3…4.&. Etc

If you’re struggling to keep up, SLOW DOWN. Find a slower drumbeat, dial the metronome back. You have to crawl before you can run. Don’t move on to another rhythm until you can do each one comfortably.

Then start taking out the downstrokes one at a time. This is where it gets tricky because those downstrums are so predominant. So, try 1.&…&.3.&.4.&. Where count “2” was is now a down strum where you DON’T actually strum the strings. This will take you a bit to really get down.

When you’ve got all the above mastered, the next step is to put them together and take out some down strums, as well as up strums. This is the most popular rhythm in guitar:
1…2.&…&.4.&.

It’s down, down up, up down up. A TON of beginner songs will have this rhythm. Pro tip: slight accent on counts 2 and 4 as mentioned earlier, just like the snare drum!!!

I hope that all makes sense. It’s easier to explain and demonstrate in person. It all takes practice, patience and time. Cheers and best of luck!!!

I have tried to teach friends how to move their wrists up and down while hitting beats we want and skipping ones we don't. Like most here, I suggest a certain song. Hey You by BTO.

Not all of us are born foot tappers and desk pounders. It's hard to explain. You're prolly fricked.

This is no way addresses your question or helps you, but your thread did remind me of this great video of Paul Stanley of KISS discussing playing rhythm as opposed to lead.

It is no way an instructional video or anything like, it's just a really good thought process and mentality to being a rhythm guitar player. Even if you're not a fan of Paul or KISS, there's stuff to takeaway there as sone in the YouTube comments.

LINK