A Beginners Guide to Learning How to Play Quarter Notes & Eighth Notes on the Guitar Part 1

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( Lead guitar solos)

 A Beginners Guide to Learning How to Play

Quarter Notes & Eighth Notes on the Guitar

Part 1

Step 1: Practice first without the guitar                                             

This lesson we will discuss on how to play quarter notes and eighth notes against the metronome or some kind of back beat that will keep time for you. At first you might want to try it with your foot. First, let’s try quarter notes. Tap at slow or moderate tempo (60bpm) with your foot and clap with your hands against your foot. Your hands and foot should be in sync with each other counting and clapping out loud.

The following clapping exercises should be practiced with a metronome
slow 80bpm, medium 120bpm, fast 140bpm 
If you don't have one the following link will take you to amazon where you can purchase one.

Metronome

 

Click on the image below to view clapping quarter note  exercise:

   

Eighth Note Clapping Exercise

  

When clapping 8^th notes you should say the rhythm like this: 1&2&3&4&.  Clap with your hands on the down beat & when the foot comes up clap on the & or the upbeat. Therefore the & or the upbeat comes before beat 2 which is the 2^nd quarter note in the measure. 

 Click on the image below to view clapping eighth note  exercise:

Step 2

 How to apply and

Play quarter & eighth note exercises on the guitar

-Practice the picking exercise in the picture document below

-The picking exercise will help develop your right hand picking technique

Step 3

Try adding some of the rhythms from the 8th note study to the blues scale. The example below uses the rhythms from measures 7 and 8. By choosing random notes from the Blues scale, and adding these quarter note & 8th note rhythms can help you develop your vocabulary of blues licks. They could be 2 measure ideas or 1 measure examples taken from the study.

Click on the photo below to view examples of the rhythm exercise study added to the blues scale: 

The video below demonstrates the quarter note & eight note exercises, the picking technique & how to play quarter & eighth note exercises on the guitar. After you practice the rhythm study you will learn how to apply them to major, blues & minor scales for soloing. In this lesson we add the rhythms to the blues scale to create blues licks.

(Amazon Link)

To further your studies with rhythm I highly recommend the book Melodic Rhythms for Guitar

In the next blog 

(rhythm guitar)

A Beginners Guide to Learning How to Play

Quarter Notes & Eighth Notes on the Guitar

Part 2 

We take the same rhythm study exercise and apply it to strumming patterns

By Phil La Viola 
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