Chords for How to Play R&B Rhythm Guitar on a 6/8 Ballad

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_ _ _ _ Hey guys, this is Rick at Tasty Guitar.
Today we're going to be working on building an R&B rhythm guitar part in a 6-8
ballad type feel.
This is a really important feel to kind of master because tons of tunes have been written in this style.
Just go back and listen to stuff by Al Green, Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, the list goes on and on.
I'm going to show you a couple really tried-and-true methods to laying down a part or to come up with stuff playing live on these tunes.
So tune up and let's get started.
All right, so the part that we're going to start with will just be these little chord stabs _
accenting where the snare drum or rim shot would be.
Now in 6-8 time that would typically be 1 2 3 4 5
6 1 2 3 4 5 6 and as you can tell I'm not using the big bar chord shape.
We're going to use small little chord fragments to make it sound real spanky.
So in this case, we're in F so I could put it here _ right there.
The G minor I'm going to [Gm] play here. _
_ The B flat over C
[Bb] _ _ back to the [F] F.
_ _ _ _ So let me demonstrate this for you right now. _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _
[Dm] _ Cut them [Gm] off right away. _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ Really snappy. _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _
[Dm] _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
Timing is [C] really important. _
_ Got to be [F] really precise
_ _ _ [C] right on that beat.
[Bb] _ _ Now I could also play it up higher
[Am] _ _ [C] _ _ _
[D] _ if you want [Gm] a more spanky feel. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ I'm [C] also using only two strings
_ [Fm] on [F] the chord voicings.
_ _ [C] _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ [F] Just experiment with it.
_ [C] _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ See which voicing _ [C] works best _
with [F] _ _ _ _
_ the [C] instrumentation in your band.
_ _ _ [G] So now that we laid our little chord stabs [C] down, another really [Bb] important and common [F] part you'll hear in a 6-8 ballad [C] would be
arpeggiated chord.
Something like [F] this. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
[Dm] _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [F] _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ [F] Now, of course you can experiment with [C] the placement of that.
You could put it on a [Dm] higher register
_ [Gm] _ _
somewhere, maybe up here. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ _ So now we have two parts that really work well together.
We got the chord stabs and a little arpeggiation thing going on.
But if you're in a one guitar situation, it's going to be tough to pull that off live unless you combine those parts.
So what I would probably [A] do would be
[F] _ _ _ _
_ _ combine _ _
_ the arpeggio [Gm] and the stab.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four, five, [G] six.
Now another really common thing you will hear in this style on these chord arpeggios is getting the pinky involved with these little hammer-on _ _ _ _
_ _ pull-off moves there.
Like the F going to the B-flat there, the four of [C] the chord from the three.
[F] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ On the G minor, I might [D] do something like [Gm] this. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ It just [E] depends on where you're voicing your chord.
If [F] I was going to play the F chord up here, _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ I might hammer [Em] on to that G [Eb] note the [F] second.
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Just experiment with it a little bit, move it around and try different things. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Eb] All right, so those two parts are really enough to fill out most of the rhythm in the track or the tune you're playing.
But if you want to add some really nice color,
you're going to want to put some fills in there here and there, kind of around a vocal line or a melody line, which
is happening in the song.
If you haven't done that before, you don't know what I'm talking about, make sure you check out the video
I did a while back called Creating Rhythm Guitar Fills in Three Simple Steps.
_ It'll be in the description below [Bb] or a card above.
I'm just going to play some really simple fills around this rhythm right now to show you what I'm talking about. _ _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Gm] _
_ _ _ I'm using thirds a lot when doing these fills. _
_ _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Gm] _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
[Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ [F] _ [Ab] All right guys, thank you so much for stopping by today and checking out building a R&B rhythm guitar part in the 6-8 ballad style.
A ton of tunes have been written in this style over the years,
so make sure you go back and check out all these old-school R&B tunes.
_ If you're not really familiar with the third step in the process we did today, which was coming up with some fills,
go back and check out my video Creating Fills in Three Simple Steps in the link in the description below.
As always, if you did enjoy the video, please like, share, and subscribe.
Come by TastyGuitar.com where I have a lot of other free lessons for you, and I do offer private instruction via Skype.
This has been Rick.
Thank you. _ _ _ _ _
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