Some Tips On How To Play Funky Rhythm Guitar

Welcome back! Today I wanna give you some tips on learning rhythm guitar.
We usually tend to learn some boring rhythm patterns when we are just starting out. I don’t
blame you! I had to learn them as well; it’s all part of the growing experience. But enough of it;
let’s check out some amazing funk inspired rhythm patterns that will bring your playing to
another level.
The rhythms I am about to show you will sound amazing with any clean guitar. You can play it
with a pick or with nothing but your thumb. The whole concept around this rhythm is that it
sounds very pocket and it is fairly easy to play. Let’s check out the first rhythm:


Do you notice the dots above the tablature? It means “staccato” and it is basically telling you to
shorten the duration of the note to a half of its value. So what we are gonna end up doing is
playing a chord and releasing the pressure from the frets immediately; you are not gonna
release the fingers from the strings though, keep them there. What you end up with is a very
staccato type of sound, almost muted or dead which sounds amazing in funk or pop.
The next rhythm I wanna show you is more funky. We are still going to use the same chords but
this time we are going to increase the value of the notes:


This is a great rhythm, as you can see, to be played with an alternate picking technique!
FInally I wanna show you a rhythm in which I combine note values from the 1st and 2nd
example I just showed you:


It is a bit challenging but with practice you can totally do it. Since you will be playing the first half
of the bar with a pick, it makes way more sense to play the rest with a pick (even though a
thumb gives it a better sound).
This is all for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and please remember to check out our
entire database of videos.

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