RHYTHM & COUNTING TIME

Like the song says " It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing ". It doesn't matter whether you play golf, swim, drive fast cars or ride a surf board, you need to have RHYTHM & Co-ordination to achieve good results. Same for playing any instrument, it requires a good sense of timing and rhythm to be able to play In Time.

Rhythm is what drives the song along, makes people want to dance, tap their feet or put you in a trance. Put simply, it is the way we divide time. By accenting certain beats, combining different time signatures & note values, we can create an infinite variety of rhythms.

In order to be able to play these different rhythms we need to first be able to count time. Here are some examples to help us count time & also to provide some strumming patterns. The standard symbols for down strums and up strums are used above the note values. Many examples also have midi files for timing reference.


This section must be studied in conjunction with the NOTES, RESTS & ACCIDENTALS pages.



The Basics
Ties & Rests
Tripletts
Sixteenths
The Jazz/Blues Rhythm
Easy Strumming Patterns