Better Rhythm Guitar - Understanding Note Values
- The American Guitar Academy
- Aug 29
- 4 min read
As a guitar player, it is imperative that we have a solid grasp of rhythm. This can help us with comping, which is supporting a song with our chosen instrument, or helping us make better informed choices, and giving us more options for our lead guitar playing.
When writing or reading music, being able to visually recognise note values as they are written on a sheet, or recognising them aurally, will make you that much more desirable to work with. Your life will also be easier too!
Rhythm Notation
Firstly, we will learn about the main rhythmic notation - this will only be the basics. This will make up a large proportion of your knowledge, as we can essentially branch everything from there. We will start off by learning these within a common time bar,
which is 4/4. Everything in the bar has to add up to four exactly - no more and no less.
Rest Notes
Every note value has an equivalent rest note. The rest notes dictate exactly how long you should not play for and when to take that pause, no matter how brief.
Time Signatures
Time signatures determine how many beats there are in each bar of the song you are playing. Sometimes songs can change time signature, but this is uncommon in popular music. Here are a few popular ones!
This one has four beats in each bar, and is often called ‘common time’ because of how popular it is.
This time signature is 3 / 4. This is the time that you might count a waltz in. Notice how now we can only fit three quarter notes in each bar.
Finally, we have 6 / 8 time. This is common for ballads, and has six eighth notes in each bar, which you should have been able to tell from the name. Some people can struggle with making this ‘feel’ correct - I would suggest you accent beats 1 and 4 (1 2 3 4 5 6) to make it sound correct.
Genre Examples
Let us explore some genres that use different time signatures and see if you can count them in your head.
4/4
Every genre has a multitude of songs written in common time. Here are a few of my favorites:
AC/DC - Back in Black
This song is from the highest selling rock album of all time of the same name. AC/DC are known for not being particularly adventurous with their songwriting, but what they do is done extremely well.
Amy Macdonald - This is The Life
This song is great for learning chords and strumming, it also has some brilliant harmonies! It is a relatively simple pop song with a folk-y twist, so it is understandable that it doesn’t stray too far from the norm.
3/4
As I mentioned before, this time signature is heavily associated with waltz music, but is also popular in many other traditional, pop and even rock songs.
Johann Strauss II - The Blue Danube Waltz
I was first introduced to this style of music, and Johan Strauss II, whilst watching one particular episode of Tom and Jerry when I was very young. Those old cartoons had the most fabulous soundtracks, but you also come across little gems like this song.
Tommy Emmanuel - Amazing Grace
Despite this song being an arrangement, and being rubato for much of the intro at least, you can clearly feel the time. The phrasing matches, and wouldn’t work as effectively in any other way.
6/8
Now we’re in ballad town, though it is not exclusively used in this style. Check out these tunes:
Guthrie Govan - Ner Ner
I could speak for hours on the genius of Guthrie Govan, but instead I will simply ask that you listen to the song, try to count the rhythm and notice how the drums and the guitar accent beats 1 and 4 as I mentioned earlier - after that, just listen and take it all in!
Alicia Keys - If I Ain’t Got You
Alicia Keys is a brilliant singer, pianist and songwriter. This song is a great example of her vocal and piano abilities, and is a great lesson in tasteful chord voicings. You may have heard this song before, notice how the drums accent the beats, but with the kick on 1 and the snare on beat 4. The arrangement for this tune is also fantastic, with a nice separation of higher and lower vocal harmonies being shared by the male and female vocalists.
Exercises
Here are two exercises for you to try. The exercises have both notes and rests, and will feature half, quarter and eighth notes. You might find it easier to copy the exercises on to a piece of paper, and then write the beats underneath.
If you can, try to play these with a combination of clapping, strumming an open string or repeating them, playing a different chord each time.
Final Thoughts
This is just a preliminary post about rhythm guitar, and we will be exploring this further in future blog posts. We will cover additional time signatures, additional subdivisions and trickier concepts. I would recommend that you also try to write some of your own rhythm exercises and play them. However, make sure the beats always add up to four! Word of warning, you will get nowhere if you write your own exercises and only use whole notes. Though you should be careful to hold the note/chord for as long as possible, as dictated by the note value.
I find that writing things out by hand is a rewarding, and even relaxing experience. You can download sheet music templates from the internet, buy blank manuscript paper in most stationary stores or just use a piece of blank paper.
If you don’t quite understand any of the ideas discussed here, make sure you ask your teacher or speak to the American Guitar Academy. You don’t need to be a rhythm genius, or sight-read fluently, to be an amazing player, but any effort to improve can only make you better.
