Angie Rhythm Guitar Lesson

Learn how to strum Angie!

This very traditional one guitar arrangement is attempting to sound as "big" as possible.

To achieve a "big sounding" rhythm guitar part you need to look at repetitive patterns in your strumming, space between notes and placement on the beat.

In general, the more repetitive and less strumming the more epic sounding.

To make it bigger, focus in on the placement of the beat.

Using a metronome, attempt to place beat 2 and 3 later behind the beat then where you put 1 and 3.

Dynamics in Strumming

As well as getting your exact strumming pattern and groove sorted you should look at your dynamics.

Once the intro is down, it's pretty much strumming full on til the end. Small dynamical changes in your pattern will be needed or you risk sounding boring.

Compare the strumming in Angie to the one of 'One More Cup Of Coffee', there should be many similarities. 

Different Types Of Strumming

By moving from a full on strum to a bass note plucked, followed by chord strum can make a huge difference to how important you make a part sound.

As usual, use the DIY TAB mainly for harmonic analysis, notate only a simple rhythm, your dynamical changes should be applied depending on the gig. Keep varying it.

This type of approach will free you up as a player, avoiding the classic mistake of learning a song exactly like the original.

Instead, always aim to understand music as a bigger picture and adapt your playing to each unique situation.

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