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A couple of months ago, I was having a drink with an old-school, elderly jazz guitarist named Patrick before my weekly gig at the restaurant I play at. To this day, I still don’t know Patrick’s last name, but he’s played with great Black jazz greats like Ellis Marsalis, and that whole “N’ah-lens scene, bruh,” as he calls it, and over the last few years that I’ve known him, I’ve really come to respect his unique wisdom and approach to the guitar. We don’t see each other often, and almost all of it has been via chance encounters at the bar. But when we do meet, we always talk about guitar, and life as a guitarist.

One day, we were talking about comping out chords to provide musical and rhythmic counterpoint against the vocals and bass, and out the blue he tells me (in his thick southern drawl – though I won’t try to write it too phonetically), “I can tell you got some chops, bruh. But you more into the groove thang than playin’ all sorts ‘a licks. I like that. Ain’t a song that’s been written that don’t need a good groove. Don’t let nobody fool ya. Let those mutha-f@#kas go off and do their noodlin’. Lots of them dudes can’t hold down a rhythm no-how!” My obvious response was, “Amen!” followed by a high-five and a triple soul-brother handshake.

I was taken by surprise by his compliment because I always feel I need to improve (I guess that’s why I push myself so hard), but I was even more amazed by what Patrick said after that because it underscored a sentiment that I’ve held for a long time: The groove of a song is where it’s at. Not only does it establish the rhythmic foundation for the song, it also forms the character and emotional framework for the entire piece. Without a foundation, you don’t have a song. Period.

Unfortunately, a lot of beginning guitarists focus almost entirely on learning lead parts, and dismiss playing rhythm guitar as merely executing a repetitious chord progression. They learn the chords as an afterthought, but don’t realize that they’re missing all the expressiveness that goes with a chord in relation to the body of a song. Playing good rhythm guitar isn’t just striking a chord on a specific beat – it’s all the stuff that happens within the duration of a chord that counts.

In my work as a music minister at my Church, I come across a lot of budding guitarists who can play leads like there’s no tomorrow. In fact, I have a 16 year old kid in my band whom I’ve had to make unlearn what he’s learned so he could learn how to play effective – and consistent – rhythm guitar. That kid knows John Mayer’s licks down cold, and a lot of other blues lead licks (which I’ve actually learned from him J ), but he couldn’t read a chord chart when he first started with the band and worse yet, had little sense of the rhythmic quality of playing guitar; in other words, no right hand technique. He’s not alone in this ignorance, and I place a lot of blame on guitar teachers for perpetuating this ignorance.

My message to them is this: Stop teaching leads to your beginning students. Teach your students how to play the damn guitar first. Teach them how to recognize the groove in a song, and teach them the groove!!! If they’ve got the groove down, then they’ve got the canvas to paint the colors of their leads. They’ll have a deeper understanding of their instrument, and how it fits in a song.

How important is groove? Don’t let me try to convince you. A couple of issues ago in Guitar Player, Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs of the Scorpions were interviewed. Jabs is an incredible lead guitarist, but he mentioned in the article that playing good rhythm guitar was more important than playing leads. “After all,” he said (paraphrasing), “I’m playing rhythm guitar 90% of the time. Leads take up 10% of a song.” Then in the latest issue of Guitar World, Lenny Kravitz had some great insights into the importance of the groove of a song and playing good rhythm guitar. “You could have a guy that can play up and down the neck all day long, but playing a rhythm part consistently for four minutes without stopping is another story. It’s amazing to me when I see players that can play a lot of stuff, but they obviously haven’t concentrated on how to groove.”

So how do you learn how to groove? Listen to all sorts of songs from different genres. Forget about leads for the moment, and listen for the groove in each song. Learn the chord progressions, yes, but learn what each guitarist is doing in between chords. Are they scratching? Are they adding colorful motes of a couple of strings? Are they adding alternate shapes or a 2 or 4 sustain to a chord. Take that all in… But after having said all that, don’t copy what they’re doing note for note. Just like with leads, learn the technique, then incorporate it into your own style.

I’ll be the first to admit that learning to be great a rhythm guitarist is hard. In fact, I find it a lot hard to learn rhythm riffs than leads, mainly because with most leads, you can follow a pattern. But with good rhythm, you have to feel what’s going on with the song you’re playing then use different techniques to affect a certain groove. But remember, the groove is what you’re after.

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