How to Spice Up Your Rhythm

Hey guys,

Have you ever wondered what the difference between you and a professional rhythm guitarist was? What do they have that adds that subtle hint of flavor to there already beautiful playing? I'm here to help you reach that stage all by yourself.

When you play your same old chords, it gets boring at some point. Thats where you have to switch up to some new chords. This lesson will help you spice up your old and common chords with suspended chords and altered chord notes.

I'm not going to be diving in deep about what these suspended chords are, but I'll teach you how to play a few shapes and help you experiment with them yourself. As you would have guessed this is not a very theoretical lesson in order to help beginners or otherwise alike. That's when it gets fun.

Suspended Chords Made Easy 

One way of playing A major suspended or Asus, is playing the open A major with a B note instead of the C#. Dsus can be played in the open position with an open high E instead of an F#. By playing these chords you would realize two things. One is that these chords sound similar to the origin chord with an added bit of flavor. Two is that these two suspended chords are open chords minus one fingered note. That fingered note usually is transferred to an open note though on occasion that changes to form different suspended chords.

Using that logic try and take any chord (minor or major) and remove a fingered note from the chord to an open note. Thus this method has a lot to do with trial and error.

If you want to move the shapes higher up the neck, take the notes of the suspended chord and find them higher up. A problem that can arise is that the shapes can be rather awkward. Like I said, trial and error.

Altering Notes Within a Chord

Another neat trick I wanted to teach you is altering the notes of your standard open chords in a different fashion from suspended chords. Take the G major open chord for example. It is made up of G, B, D notes. My personal preference is that I like the chord with only the G, D notes (it is still a G major chord). For that purpose I mute the B note on the A string and also add the D note on the B string to eliminate all B notes. I love the way it sounds without the B. You could do the same WITHOUT changing the standard notes that make up the chord. Otherwise you might end up with a different chord entirely.

Experiment with these ideas. It's a load of fun. You can even ude these ideas for original songs much like I do.

Cheers guys,

Visal.

Btw I'm sorry I haven't posted a lesson in a while :)

Guitar Fun Fact of the day!

Julio Iglesias was a promising footballer, however, was in a horrible car accident. Three years of paralysis (except arms), Julio led to the guitar. Thanks to them Iglesias became a famous musician.