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Chapter 3: Grab Hold, Tune Up, Play On!
53
Mapping out your short-term
path: Rhythm notation
Musicians often use a simple rhythm chart (like a road map) to convey the
basic form of a song, which avoids the issue of reading or writing out more
formal music parts. Rhythm, in this case, means playing to the beat and keeping
a consistent strumming or picking pattern going in your right hand.
Following are some basic shorthand techniques that help you navigate the
music figures in this book:
Rhythm slashes (/) are the diagonal marks that simply tell you to play
“in the style of the song,” but they don’t tell you exactly what rhythm
to play.
Chord symbols (letter name with a quality, such as 7 or m) determine
what you play, and some other indication, like a simple performance
note at the beginning of the piece (such as Shuffle or Slow blues), tells
you the style.
Here’s how these techniques work: If you see the chord symbol E above a
staff with four slashes, you grab an E chord with your left hand and strike it
four times with your right hand in a rhythmic manner that is consistent with
the song’s feel.
Rhythm notation isn’t an exact science because whoever wrote this chart
(as music on a sheet of paper is called) assumes you know what that style is
without seeing the exact notes. Figure 3-7 shows a typical bar of music that
uses rhythm slashes and a chord symbol. Practice the exercise a few times so
you can begin to associate symbols on a page with sounds from a guitar.
Figure 3-7:
One bar of
an E chord
with rhythm
slashes.
In the example in Figure 3-7, the slashes indicate four pick strokes on the
guitar. But in general, slashes don’t dictate any particular rhythm, only that
you play an E chord for the duration of the bar.
TEAM LinG