Updated 2023
Estimated time to read: 5 minutes

On a contemporary worship team, your sole job as a rhythm guitarist is to play the right chords, at the right time, in the right rhythm, and at the right tempo. When you do all 4 of these things during a worship set, you’re fulfilling your role. And when every musician on the team fulfills their role and does it well, the sound, the emotion, the freedom, and the possibilities are exponential! These 4 principles are very important and will be the foundation of your development as a rhythm guitarist.

Sections:

• The 4 Principles of Rhythm Guitar

• Principle of Rhythm Guitar #1: Play the Right Chords (Chord Voicings)

• Principle of Rhythm Guitar #2: Play the Chords at the Right Time (Chord Changes)

• Principle of Rhythm Guitar #3: Play the Right Rhythm (Strum Patterns)

• Principle of Rhythm Guitar #4: Play at the Right Tempo (BPM)

• Wrapping it up

The 4 Principles of Rhythm Guitar

If you haven’t heard about the 4 principles of rhythm guitar here at WGA, here they are. Let’s jump right in.

1. Play the right chords (chord voicings)

2. Play the chords at the right time (chord changes)

3. Play the right rhythm (strum patterns)

4. Play at the right tempo (BPM)

Principle of Rhythm Guitar #1: Play the Right Chords (Chord Voicings)

After you get comfortable holding a guitar you’ll want to learn how to play some chords. As a rhythm guitarist, typically you will play chords 100% of the time. The lead guitarist will handle everything else.

Chords are played with your fretting hand, which is typically your non-dominant hand. if you play right handed guitar, your dominant hand (right) is the one that holds the pick and strums the strings. The fingers of the fretting hand (left) press on the strings to form shapes. If you are left handed and play left handed guitar, then the hands are switched. These shapes can be simple or complex.

The easiest way to learn chords is by studying chord diagrams like this:

To develop your vocabulary of chords, choose your favorite song that you also have the chord chart for. There are going to be major chords and minor chords. Use the chord diagrams to place your fingers in the correct positions and strum the strings.

It might sound terrible at first, but this is expected! Not to worry. Keep repositioning your fretting hand fingers and strumming to test that you are playing the right notes. Soon you’ll be able to play chords in no time.

Principle of Rhythm Guitar #2: Play the Chords at the Right Time (Chord Changes)

Once you have the basics of a few chords down, you’ll want to work on transitioning from one chord to the next. This is all done by the fretting hand. The difficulty here is learning to coordinate your right hand strums to match the changes from chord to chord in the left hand. As your fretting hand fingers develop more dexterity, you’ll notice that you can transition from one chord to the next easily and quickly.

Depending on the strum pattern, you will have a certain amount of time between strums to transition from one chord to the next and still be “in-time.” You want to be as smooth and even as possible. Some strum patterns make it difficult to transition from chord to chord, whereas some are easy. The easy ones tend to have fewer strums per chord and leave lots of space.

While spacious strumming may not sound as full or exciting as your favorite artist’s strumming, it’s perfect if you’re just starting out and developing your chord transitions. Once you can transition smoothly with your fretting hand, then play the song slightly faster by speeding up or adding strums with your strumming hand.

Principle of Rhythm Guitar #3: Play the Right Rhythm (Strum Patterns)

Once you are able to fret (or finger) chords fairly well, you’ll want to incorporate chord changes and strum patterns at the same time. This is tricky to balance in the learning process because chord changes are all left hand while strum patterns are all right hand (for right hand dominant players).

A perfect strum pattern to begin with is a simple 4-count down-strum pattern. A song is 4/4 if you can count 1 2 3 4 over and over and it sounds like it fits. With 4 beats per measure, you will simply strum down across the strings 4 times, once for each beat.

Sounds simple right? It might not be so easy the first couple of times but that’s why playing guitar is a skill — because you have to work at it. Practice strumming down a few times and then transition to the next chord.

As you keep practicing, you’ll add more chords and strum patterns to your repertoire. Keep at it and you’ll be playing full songs on your own in no time.

Principle of Rhythm Guitar #4: Play at the Right Tempo (BPM)

In the majority of music, and especially in contemporary worship music, each song has its own tempo. This is measured in beats per minute, or BPM for short. You’ll often see BPM on metronomes or click tracks.

Initially, and for a while, you’ll want to practice chords and chord changes at a speed or tempo less than what a particular song is played at. Practice and play through chord progressions — which make up songs — at various tempos and with different strum patterns to get you ready for playing songs in real time by yourself or with a team.

There is something unsettling when a song you know is played just a little too fast and feels rushed, or is played too slow and seems like it drags on forever. People pick up on little things like that even if they can’t tell you in musical terms what is going on.

Wrapping it up

These principles seem basic and may not seem very exciting by themselves, but I can tell you that once you have a good grasp of these 4 foundational concepts, your abilities as a rhythm worship guitarist will increase dramatically.

When I was first starting out, principle #4: Play at the Right Tempo was the hardest one for me to master. As I practiced every day playing along to my favorite songs and working on transitioning from one chord to the next, I got better. I felt more confident in my position on worship teams and as a rhythm guitarist in general. You can too!

Drop a comment below and share what principle you’re currently working through, the one that took you the longest to master, or a piece of wisdom for those working to master these foundational principles.