Intermediate Rhythm Guitar 5 (Guitar Lesson IM-155) How to play IF Stage 5

Hi, how're you doing, Justin here.
Welcome to IM-155,
which is a rhythm guitar lesson,
and we're going to be checking out chips, spreads, splangs and muted strumming.
Now, I'm gonna be doing these on an electric guitar,
but you can do all of these techniques
and all of the other stuff that we've been doing so far
in this Foundation 5, on an acoustic too.
Just some of the techniques kind of sound cooler on electric,
which is why I'm playing electric for this stage.
Now, the first thing we're gonna check out is a thing called "chips".
Now, hopefully if you think back a little while,
you'll remember we did that snare hit,
where we learned to strum (plays) with a little bit of a hit noise,
which kind of replicated the snare drum that a drummer would play on beats 2 and 4.
Now, a very common kind of second guitar part,
-- or first guitar part, if you're playing with a keyboard and bass,
like a full band kinda setting --
is to play what we call "chips" on beats 2 and 4.
And a chip is a very, very short strum.
So, if you've got your chord,
I'm just gonna be using a G barre chord here.
I'm just turning my volume down a little bit, so I can hit the guitar a bit hard.
So a chip would be:
. . .
Really, very, very short.
"Staccato" is the word for this very short sound.
. . .
TWO, three, FOUR.
One, TWO, three, FOUR.
It's that kind of thing. Very, very short little chords.
Now, I already mentioned to you that they're happening on beats 2 and 4.
So, what you really listen to when you listen to the song:
. . .
TWO, three, FOUR.
One, TWO, three, FOUR.
Don't be afraid to count until you get used to feeling where 2 and 4 are.
Chips sometimes come on other beats.
There's a couple of famous examples that
they are kind of happening on the "and" after 4.
So, 1, 2, 3, 4 and (plays)
1, 2, 3, 4 and (plays)
That kind of thing.
But, most commonly they happen on beats 2 and 4.
So, it's worth practicing counting along
and putting your chips on 2 and 4
There's a few things that you want to be aware of
that will help to get your chip really short, bright
and kinda tight.
And the first thing is the fretting hand.
Now, normally if you're doing this kind of chips,
you wouldn't be doing it with open chords.
You tend to do this kind of thing with barre chords,
and all kind of little versions of barre chords,
like the triad shapes that we looked at earlier,
or very commonly it's played this... (plays)
It's like an E shape barre chord -- if I play a G chord --
but we just play the thinnest four strings. (Plays)
Now, actually let's go to a close-up
and check out a couple of the really common shapes
that we use for chips.
This is one of the most common grips
for playing chips.
It's essentially a small version of our big E-Shape barre chord,
-- this is a G chord at the 3rd fret --
and you can see here, now, we've just kind of done a smaller one,
we've dropped the barre down, put the 3rd finger where the 4th finger was
(plays) and we end up with this little four-string G chord.
It helps if the tip of the 3rd fret is muting the 5th string.
Now, the lowest string can either be muted by bringing your thumb over
or by the strumming hand sitting on the thickest string.
Now, at this point I'd also like to explain to you
. . .
the idea of how you press down the chord for the chip.
Because, what the idea is, is that you'd leave your fingers in position.
So, my fingers are in the right spots now, but they're not pressing down.
And then I press down, just at the moment as I strum
and then immediately relax again.
. . .
Now, I'm not doing any muting with my strumming hand at all.
That's all left hand.
. . .
That's the idea, and it's really quite important that you learn
how to do this "press & release", "press & release".
It's almost... If I'm not pressing, then
. . .
I was just doing continuous strumming
which is not a bad little exercise
in order to get used to the idea of keeping them
. . .
really nice and short.
Now, the other... That's a Major, that's a G Major.
The minor version (plays) would be that.
Just lifting off the 2nd finger, 3rd finger,
1st finger playing a little barre.
. . .
Very, very common little grip that one,
for doing some chips.
Now, the other one that's very common
is this one: (plays)
which is... Now, we have talked before about using...
... doing an A-Shape barre chord like this
using the 3rd finger to do a little barre.
When you're doing chips (plays), sometimes...
...'cause you really wanna hear that thinnest string there,
people play it like this:
. . .
It's also easier to get this
really, really short press-on when you're doing that.
With the barre it's a little bit harder to get the press,
and it's exactly real hard to get that thinnest string.
So, usually when you're doing chips, (plays)
you'd probably play it this way:
. . .
That'd be the Major.
And the minor.
. . .
G Major.
. . .
G minor.
. . .
And the other really common one that gets used,
which is a shape that we haven't really looked at yet.
. . .
This would be a C-Shape barre chord.
Now, I don't really recommend that you spend too much time on this one yet.
Can be a little bit tricky.
But the root note,...
Or the root note for the full chord
is with the little finger and the 2nd finger.
Just like it was an open C chord:
There's a regular C,
there's C without your first finger,
move it up two frets, 1st finger does a little barre. (Plays)
But, what's really commonly played (plays) is the thinnest four strings.
. . .
And this would be a D chord,
there's the root note, there,
we're just not playing the low root.
So we got there: the 4th fret, 2nd fret, 3rd fret, 2nd fret.
So, the first finger's doing a little barre.
. . .
Really, really common little movements these.
So, you got G (plays)
G minor (plays)
C (plays)
C minor (plays)
and D.
Now you know what they sound like,
you're gonna find examples of chips
all over the place.
If you just keep an ear out now
you won't be able to avoid them.
They're in lots and lots of different songs,
in lots of different styles.
I'm going to put a list of songs
that use them really obviously,
on the web site.
The next technique we're going to check out
is called a "spread",
which is basically a slow motion strum.
Sounds kinda like this:
. . .
And what's really important with a spread,
is that you realize that it's the last note that you play
that lands on the beat.
The rest of the spread comes before the beat.
So, if we're doing it in really slow motion,
we're gonna gave like:
Three
Four
(plays) One.
So, literally, that last note wants to sit with the beat,
just at the end.
Takes a little bit of practice, but again:
if you've got your metronome on,
just practice making sure that the last note of the chord
each time is the one that lands right on the beat.
Now, again, I'm going to put a list of some songs
that have good examples of spreads in them, for you to go and listen to,
because, the best way to learn this kind of stuff
is to hear them being used in the real world.
The third rhythm technique we're gonna check out today
is one called the "splang".
Now, I know "splang" is a bit of a funny word,
and to be honest, I don't really see it written down that often,
but I've heard loads of producers use it over the years,
and what it kinda means is: like a spread,
but it happens right on the beat,
and it usually just happens on beat 1.
It's normally played as a second guitar part.
So, if there's one guy playing like your normal kind of strumming,
on electric or acoustic, it wouldn't matter,
you'd end up doing this as an overdub.
So, like recording a second guitar part.
Normally it'd be played something like this.
So: 2, 3, 4.
1 (plays), 2, 3, 4.
(plays), 2, 3, 4.
Set nicely, just right on the beat.
. . .
It's also a good thing if you've got a keyboard player
that's playing a whole lot of stuff in your band.
Sometimes playing rhythm,
or if there's two guitar players playing rhythm,
there's lots of reasons why sometimes you don't want to play too much.
Sometimes you need the dynamic of the song to kind of sit down a little bit,
and you don't want to keep strumming all the time.
So, you can add in a few splangs here and there for, say a verse.
You wouldn't just kinda throw one in randomly, I must say.
You normally would do it.
A good place for a splang is the third verse,
so the verse that comes after the first chorus,
'cause that part of the song usually kinda dies down a little bit,
the dynamic of it.
So, if you can insert some splangs there, in the third verse,
you'll find that the kind of the dynamic of the tune drops a little bit
and you can build up again for the next chorus,
and then the bridge and the double chorus and out.
Learning to kind of arrange the songs
and using these kind of techniques to create a kind of a dynamic to the tune,
is a really important kind of part of,
getting from kind of begginery kind of songs where
you're just playing the same strumming all of the way through
and you don't really think about stuff like dynamics or the build of a song,
and that's the kind of thing that you want to start thinking about now
and that I want you to start paying attention to. So,
whenever you listen to a song,
see if you can keep an ear out on
exactly how they are arranging the guitars in the song,
'cause you'll find, most of the time,
it's not exactly the same all of the way through the song.
There'll be other bits: a second guitar here,
or the first guitar on drop out for a little while, that kind of thing. So,
have a listen to it
and listen now that I've mentioned a couple of these different kind of common
overdub techniques, or second guitar techniques.
Have a listen and say where they occur, you know.
Cool! They're good fun, and they'll make a big difference to your playing.
Now, the last thing we are gonna check out is the muted strum.
Now, this sounds really cool on acoustic guitar,
but it sounds great on electric as well.
And the basic idea is that instead of having a regular strum with no muting,
like going, you know:
. . .
Just to pick a really easy chord progression:
down, down-up, up-down.
You do the same thing, but you rest
the outside part of your strumming hand palm,
just on the edge of the bridge,
where the string kinda meet the bridge.
Of course, it means that you're not making a big movement with your arm any more,
you're just making a little movement with your hand, you know
. . .
That would be: down, down-up, up-down.
down, down-up, up-down.
And you can see it's got a different...
it's got a bit more kinda chugginess to it.
Sounds different.
. . .
It's a really, really good fun thing to get into doing this.
And you will find that it kind of changes the whole tune, a souse.
You know, if I'm going:
. . .
You can play there:
. . .
It's got a whole different kind of vibe to it. So,
getting into this muted strum, it's just easy.
It is, literally,
just the same old strumming patterns that you've been checking out,
but trying to get that outside of the palm sitting on the strings.
That doesn't have to sit there ALL the time,
and this is kind of the cool thing about it.
It's not kind of so rigid, you don't wanna be going like:
(playing) down, down-up, up-down.
down, down-up, up-down.
Because it just kinda... what... it hasn't got any life,
it hasn't got any vibe.
So, it's kind of about the hand lifting up a bit.
. . .
up, up-down.
down, down-up, up.
So, for both those "up's" (plays) they're kinda without the mute:
Down, down-up, up-down,
down, down-up, up-down.
. . .
Do you get the idea? Just experiment!
Have a go at trying to do some strumming patterns that you like,
the ones that you feel are kind of groovy,
with a little bit of this kind of
muted strumming technique.
Well, I hope that's given you a few new techniques
that you can incorporate into your rhythm guitar playing.
It really makes a big difference if you start thinking about the dynamics of the tunes.
So, make sure you listen to the songs that you really like,
and see if you can steal their ideas and steal their kind of... form of their dynamics.
Like where the song is loud, where the song is quiet.
Try and get incorporating these techniques as soon as you can,
because it's really the playing of them
that will help them work their way into your playing.
If you just think about them and practice them by themselves,
they won't probably ever happen naturally in your playing.
It's through playing it a lot,
that they'll start to become instinctive and natural.
OK, hope you've had fun with that.
I'll see you for another lesson very soon.
Take care of yourselves, bye-bye.