Guitar Lesson Seven - Right Hand Technique

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Guitar Lesson Seven - Technique

Right hand:

One of the picking hand's responsibilities is to help define the rhythm of a piece of music. This is accomplished through the use of ACCENTS. Accents are accomplished by playing a note or group of notes (chord) louder or harder than the rest of the notes you are playing. This causes that particular note or chord to "stand out" from the rest.

One of the ways that accents are used is in conjunction with the note groupings that you have learned so far: quarter notes, eighth notes, eighth note triplets and sixteenth notes. (We'll save thirty-second notes for later.) We're going to take a look at the most common way that each of these note groupings are accented.

Let's start with quarter notes.

Begin by tapping your foot at a comfortable tempo, then once you have the tempo established, count out loud with each of your foot taps: 1, 2, 3, 4 - 1, 2, 3, 4. This establishes each of your foot taps as a quarter note. Remember that 4/4 is the most common time signature, and in 4/4 time, the quarter note gets one beat. (Go back and review Theory Part I in lesson 4.)

Now that you have the tempo and time signature established, play an A power chord at the 5th fret of the low E-string for each quarter note like this:

Now, play the same thing again, but this time, put an accent on the first note of each measure:

The > symbol written just below the first note of each measure is the accent. This is the most common way that accents are written in standard notation. To play the accent, simply play the first quarter note of each measure a little harder than you play the rest of the notes. Both notes of the power chord are accented. Accents apply to the beat rather than the specific note. All notes that land on an accented beat are treated with the accent.

What the accent does is break up a bunch of notes into sections. In this case the accent helps to define the start of each new measure.

More importantly for now, we are going to see how accents are used to help define note groupings smaller than the quarter note.

Let's try eighth notes.

Play the A power chord again, but this time play two measures of Eighth notes. Eighth notes are played two notes to each beat. (use all own strokes for this exercise. I'll let you know when to use upstrokes or alternate picking.)

Notice that the accents are used to define the first note of each group of eighth notes. This keeps the notes from sounding like one long string of chords and gives the music "drive".

The same thing happens when we play eighth note triplets and sixteenth notes. (You may have to slow the tempo down if you find it difficult to play sixteenth note using only down strokes. It takes time and practice to develop the wrist muscles to the point where you can play this sort of thing at a faster tempo.)

In each case, the accent is used to define the note grouping. Without accents, the music has no shape or character. It just sounds like one long string of notes.

Let's apply accents to the A major and A minor scale.

First, play this A major run using alternate picking:

It's up to you to figure out the notes and fingering. Be sure to pay attention to the key signature and keep you eye on the whole-steps and half-steps.

Once you are comfortable with the run, add the appropriate accents:

Now try the same run using the A minor scale (notice that the 3rd, 6th and 7th are lowered).

Practice these two runs until the accents feel perfectly natural.

Now let's try some sixteenth notes:

A major

A minor

These two runs require you to move around quite a bit more. Practice them slowly and get those accents right.

I've saved triplets for last, because they present a special challenge for the picking hand. When using alternate picking, any note grouping that contains an odd number of notes (3, 5, 7, 9) requires you to be able to play an accent with either a down stroke or an up stroke. This can be awkward at first. The tendency is to want to play every accent with a down stroke.

Work these two runs out slowly and keep that pick moving down, up down, up.

A major

A minor

Notice how playing accents forces you to really pay attention to each note grouping. This is as it should be. Music is much more than just playing a bunch of notes one after the other. Music has structure and rhythm. It is up to you to convey this structure and rhythm with your instrument when you play.

Now, how much accent you give to the first note of a note grouping is really a matter of personal taste. There are no hard and fast rules. Some players prefer to apply accents very clearly. Others opt for a more subtle approach. Still others never even bother with accents, and their playing reflects this. It begins to sound like spaghetti after a while.

Find your own voice.

This lesson is divided into five parts:

Theory Part I

Theory Part II

Technique - Left Hand

Technique - Right Hand

Music

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