Rhythm Guitar Tricks

I still vividly remember riding home with my brother in our Mom’s blue Mercury Topaz listening to our local SoCal radio station KLOS when Hendrix’s Bold As Love started playing. It was an epic moment for me and honestly one of the first times I had ever even paid attention to rhythm guitar. Up until that point it was 80’s metal solos 24 hours a day, and the faster the better! After hearing that song, I dove deep into Hendrix. I was dying to know what he was doing rhythmically and how on earth he got a soloing freak like me to start wanting to play rhythm guitar.

In the video lesson below you will learn tons of rhythm guitar tricks Hendrix used in songs like Bold As Love, Little Wing, and Castles Made Of Sand. Inspired by early R&B guitar players Hendrix added his own unique style, creating an amazing new way of playing rhythm and lead lines at the same time. He did this using double stops, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs within the chord shapes. As difficult as it may sound when listening to Hendrix’s songs, the concepts behind how to do it are actually quite simple.

In addition you will learn how to apply these tricks to both major and minor chords. This style of rhythm playing can be heard in todays music ranging from blues, country, rock, R&B, as well as jazz. Although this video concentrates on rhythm guitar, once you learn these techniques they can be applied to lead guitar to dramatically improve your soloing. It will help you not only see the chords beneath your fingers while you are soloing but to also effortlessly chain licks together. This style of rhythm has done more for my own rhythm and lead playing than anything else I have learned. A word of warning though, once you start to learn this technique you won’t ever want to stop. Your neighbors will LOVE you (haha), and when they come over at midnight to tell you to shut up just blame it all on me :). Hope you like it, and thanks for your support!