One more guitar exercise today! I want to talk about the right-hand rhythm exercise. I still remember the first time I learned this one. It felt impossible at first but after a good deal of practice, I was able to play it within a week or two.
How to play it?
You don't need much technique to play this one, it's rather an exercise for your mind. The idea is to keep the left hand at the same fret and only actually press it when you have to play it. Also, it is important you keep alternating your picking pattern as you'll be able to do it then faster and faster.
So now imagine we have the classic 4/4 time signature and you play one note at each quarter (click) but you stop them by not pressing but just 'touching' the string. All you need to do is push at the first quarter at the first loop, then at the second loop, you press at the second quarter and so on, making it an everlasting loop where you play each quarter in turns.
Conclusion:
As I said, this can be challenging at first but I believe this is like riding a bike, once you learn it you never forget it. Once you master it, you can start messing up with the order and have all sorts of rhythms and subdivide the tempo in different ways, like in 8th or 16th notes.
The reason why this exercise is important is that it allows you to understand the movements within time and be able to cue with your guitar at any moment in time as well as practising your alternate picking!
Tab and video attached here:
