How to Practice Jazz Guitar Rhythm Patterns

When studying jazz guitar soloing, many of us focus on learning chords, scales and
arpeggios, as well as how these structures relate to each other in a musical
fashion. While having a strong grasp of harmony and melody is important to develop
a solid improvisational palette, there is often one key ingredient that is missing from our
jazz guitar practice routine, rhythm, and in particular jazz guitar rhythm patterns.
One of the easiest ways that Ive found to add rhythm to your jazz guitar practice
routine is to think of rhythms as things, such as a chord or scale, and not just as an
abstract concept.
For example, instead of thinking about playing eighth notes or quarter notes, think of
specific groups of eighth notes, as we would any melodic motive such as a scale
fragment or arpeggio.
Do you have a questions or comments about this lesson? Visit the Rhythm Patterns for
Guitar thread at the MWG Forum.

Jazz Guitar Rhythm Patterns 1

Example 1 shows a group of 4 eighth notes that come together to form a rhythmic cell
in the first two beats of the bar.

Once you have your jazz guitar rhythm picked out, the key is to solo using only this
one jazz guitar rhythm, see Example 8 for an example over an F jazz blues chord
progression.
Take any chord, chord progression or song that youre working on, and try to improvise
a solo using only one jazz guitar rhythm, in this case 1&2&.
This is trickier than it sounds, and the hard part is to keep the jazz guitar rhythm pattern
going for 10 to 15 minutes during your solo, while maintaining a level of melodic and
harmonic interest so that you dont get bored.

Youd be surprised at how much your melodic ideas will open up when you focus on
one jazz guitar rhythm; forcing you to be more creative with your lines to avoid
becoming monotonous.
Now that you have your jazz guitar rhythm pattern (this can be any combination of
notes such as 3 eighth notes, a quarter note and 4 sixteenth notes, two eighth note
triplets, whatever you can think of) you can move it around the bar in order to create
more rhythmic interest, in the same way that you would move a lick or pattern around
a scale to create melodic interest.
Example 2 shows how this idea can be played starting on different points within the
bar.

Jazz Guitar Rhythm Patterns 2

With this motive firmly in place, you can now go one level deeper by adding accents to
each note in the jazz guitar rhythm pattern.
This means that youll play one of the four notes louder than the other three, which is
indicated by the little arrow above the different notes.
Examples 3 to 6 lay out the different accents that you can use with a four-note rhythm
pattern, including all the rhythmic variations discussed in Example 2.
Try to focus on one accent first, say the first note of the example, and then push that
around to the different starting points within the bar.
Once you can do that, then move on to accenting the second note, then the third and so
forth.
This will not only help you develop your rhythmic playing, but it also raises the level of
control in your picking hand, something this is also often ignored in our practicing but
that is found in the playing of countless great guitarists.

Jazz Guitar Rhythm Patterns 3

Jazz Guitar Rhythm Patterns 4

Jazz Guitar Rhythm Patterns 5

Jazz Guitar Rhythm Patterns 6

You can also add another layer of interest by removing one of the notes in your jazz
guitar rhythm pattern and replacing it with silence.
In Example 7, you can see what the rhythm pattern will look and sound like if you take
out the first note.
Once youve experimented with this, try putting a rest on the second, third and fourth
notes, as well as adding accents to the different notes and pushing them around the bar
as in previous examples.
By doing so, youve created an endless number of rhythmic possibilities to add to your
playing, and you did so with only one rhythmic pattern!

Jazz Guitar Rhythm Patterns 7

Try coming up with your own jazz guitar rhythmic patterns to practice, adding
accents, moving them around the bar and adding rests as youve done here.
Remember, practice at a slow tempo, theres no hurry to learn this stuff.
Its always better to go slow and fully ingrain these ideas than to rush through them and
not internalize them properly. One properly learned musical idea is worth more to your
playing than a thousand half-learned concepts.

In the final example, Ive written out a one-chorus solo over an F blues using the first
jazz guitar rhythm pattern, with an accent on the third note throughout.
Its not the most musically interesting solo, but with practice you can take these ideas
and insert them into your playing in the moment, raising your solo to the next level and
beyond.

Jazz Guitar Rhythm Patterns Blues Solo