Chords for 3 Mistakes Rhythm Guitarists Make with Cory Wong

[E] Hey, [G] this is Cory Wong.
[A] I'm here with Sweetwater [Cm] to talk about [C#m] three [G#m] common [A] mistakes
that [E] rhythm guitar players make.
Now, before we get started,
I want to [D] acknowledge a couple things.
First off, we as [C#m] guitar players need to be [Am] okay
with the fact that sometimes [E] we make mistakes.
[C#] We're not always [D] perfect, so get over it.
It's okay.
[C#] We have to acknowledge those things.
[F#m] Number two [E] is that I [Am] normally like to focus
on the positive parts of my [E] playing
and the positive parts of things
that people are [F#m] doing in [E] music
because music is [C] such an art and it's [G#m] subjective,
but [E] there are certain things that can be objective
that we can [D#m] look at [A] and acknowledge,
okay, these are [Cm] some things
that we [E] could potentially look at [A] as issues
on why things might not be working [E] out
or [Am] why when something that you're playing
maybe doesn't sit as hot in the mix when you listen back
or it just feels like something kind of clashes.
[Dm] Number one, you [C#m] probably have too many notes
in your [G] voicings.
Now, this of course depends
on the instrumentation of your band,
but it's a common thing that I see,
and I think the reason is because many of us
were taught chord voicings like this,
sixth string rooted bar chords,
_ _ fifth string rooted bar [C] chords, _
where we have these large voicings, five or six notes,
where you think about it on the piano,
it would just be like these big clunky voicings.
On the guitar, we tend to want to play
these big [G] thick voicings
because they sound awesome, right?
The issue with that is that in the context of a band,
there's typically a bass player playing the low note,
and oftentimes there's [N] another comping
or melodic instrument, keyboard, piano, whatever.
In my band, I have a horn section,
and actually sometimes two keyboard players
and a singer, that sort of thing.
There's a lot of harmonic information,
bass note information, and melodic information happening.
So what I need to take into consideration
is how many notes am I playing,
and is it too much information?
For example, I could work on playing a G7 chord,
just comping a G7 [G] chord like this. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] And that sounds fine on its own,
but in the context of a band,
it might actually muddy up the mix a little bit.
And what can end up happening is
either the front of house engineer
or the mixing engineer in a studio
might end up just turning down the guitar
because it feels like, I don't know, it's cluttered.
Maybe the guitar's too loud.
And then the volume gets down,
and then all of a sudden you just don't hear your guitar.
Now, one [G] of the things that can actually solve
that problem for them occasionally
is just to make a thinner voicing, just play less notes.
So that same exact sort of thing.
If I just whittled it down to these three notes, _
I could do this. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ I could just do two notes like this. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ Now, the rhythmic value is the exact same.
The harmonic information, I'm just giving less of it
because I'm creating room for what would potentially be
a keyboard, a horn section,
a bass player's playing the root note,
so I don't really have to play that low.
And what it ends up doing is it creates
a lot more space in an arrangement.
The second mistake that I see
a lot of rhythm guitar players make
is their consistency of right hand
and their control over their right hand dynamics. _
[Fm] _ _ _ [F#] _ [G] _ Now, of [N] course, those are kind of two different things,
but it's one overarching concept
that not a lot of people practice.
And I only know this because I went to music college
and I saw what most of my peers were practicing,
and I even saw what the classes were teaching
and what a lot of the books out there are teaching.
There's not as much focus on this sort of thing.
So the thing that I want to suggest for you _
and recommend is if you're trying to get a more precise
and a more accurate rhythm guitar approach,
work on the consistency of right hand
and controlling your accents.
So I'm gonna just show you a couple things here.
So what I like to do is practice with a metronome.
I don't have one with me right now,
but I just practice steady thing
or even just a drum set _ metronome you can find online.
You can search in your browser for a drum machine
or go in Logic or Pro Tools or whatever you use
and just play along in time.
Just start like this _ and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ then do 16th notes.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ And you'll notice that my left hand
is just muting the strings.
Just focus on your right hand.
Try to get the consistency happening.
And then once you do that,
try to add in different accents and accent patterns.
I'll start with the eighth note one,
all down strokes just for now. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G#m] _ And what you wanna do is focus on your quieter notes
and your louder notes,
not changing where the time gets placed.
Focus on keeping the same time,
but a different velocity
and a different attack on each of those.
You can do the same thing with 16th notes. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Where you're kind of placing accents in different places.
What it does is it gives you more control
so you can do things [G] like.
[F] _ _ _ _ _ _ [C#m] _
[A#] _ _ _ _ [N] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A#] _ _ _ [Fm] _ _ _ [F#] _
[G] So that way when I'm playing through those sort of riffs,
it's kind of part of my style
and part of the way that I play.
That right hand consistency is so important.
I don't wanna think about how is this accent gonna come.
I just want it to be second nature.
And the more that I practice those sort of things,
the more that it just can come out and flow in my playing.
The third mistake that I hear
a lot of rhythm guitar players make is all about awareness.
_ [N] _ _ _ It has nothing to do with even what you're playing.
Well, that's kind of a lot.
It has a lot to do with what you're playing,
but it's not anything to do with your hands.
It's all about what you're focusing on in your mind.
A lot of guitar players that I see
are really just focused on what it is that they're playing
and they're not paying attention
to what the people around them are playing
in the context of a band.
Which to me is absolutely absurd.
Because if you think about all the best bands in history,
you think about orchestras,
how an orchestra will arrange parts,
the brass section with the woodwind section,
with the string section, even the string section,
they're all arranged to make room for each other.
Best rock and roll bands have that sort of thing.
The best funk bands, horn bands, all that sort of stuff.
If you think about what you're playing
and only focus on that,
you're not gonna _ realize whether what you're playing _ _
gets in the way of the melody,
is a counter to the melody that doesn't quite line up
on this one particular eighth note.
So it kind of muddies up the entire thing.
The more that you pay attention
to what else is happening in the band,
the more that you're gonna understand
what your role is in the song
or what somebody else's role is.
In my band as Corey Wong, I'm the band leader.
So I kind of get to do whatever I want on the guitar,
which is pretty fun.
I understand that's a little bit of an anomaly,
but what I do is I have my guitar parts
and then I'm paying attention
to what everybody else is doing.
And sometimes I think,
oh, actually because of what this person is doing,
I might wanna change a little bit of what I'm doing.
Or what it can be is I have this guitar part
and I'm listening to what everybody else is playing
and I'm recognizing that somebody else's rhythm,
this one 16th note kind of makes a hiccup
compared to what my guitar part is.
So then I can ask them to change their part.
Sometimes I change my part, sometimes the other one.
It really just depends on what feels like the best move
for that particular song or that particular section
or arrangement of the song.
So mental awareness and paying attention
to your surroundings,
obviously that's a good life lesson as well,
but it's super important in playing a guitar
and rhythm guitar, because as a rhythm guitarist,
what I'm thinking about is how is my right hand feel
locking with the drummer's feel?
How are the heavy chords, the heavy downbeats
that I'm playing lining up with the bass player?
How is the melodic parts of what I'm playing
lining up with the other melodic instruments,
like the vocal or some other lead instrument?
And also how much harmonic information am I giving
related to anybody else who's giving that?
Keyboard players, horn players, bass players, whatever,
anybody else in the band,
like we talked about in our voicings.
That awareness is gonna help you understand your role
as a guitar player and it's gonna help you understand
how to craft better parts,
parts that work better within the song,
parts ultimately that will end up sitting hotter in the mix
and just being something that stands out
a little bit more on its own.
Thanks for hanging with me.
This [Cm] is Corey [A] Wong at Sweetwater.
If [Dm] you wanna dive deeper into any of these concepts,
I actually have a [G#] guitar course.
You can go to _ [A] coreywongguitarkourse [Bm].com.
[A] There's a lot more of a deep dive
that you can do in these things,
but I promise if you implement these three things
into your playing,
your rhythm guitar playing will be much better.
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _ [G#m] _ _ [Am] _ _ [A] _ _ [Bm] _