anyone else primarily a rhythm player?

[Matt Plescher]

like me?

I've always liked rhythm better than lead. I can do a solo, but I'd rather be chording.

Cheers
Matt

[eryque]

I started off there, didn't care if I got much chance to play solos or not, but then I figured out that most of the local musicians won't pay you no nevermind if you don't do some screamin' leads. I never liked extended solos as much as I loved tasty fills, but I'm working hard at extending my blues solos past the first turnaround.

My favorite line in any song ever is from "Sultans of Swing"

Check out Guitar George
He knows all the chords

[astro]

I'm the rhythm player. I have been the lead player, lots a times, but now I'm the singer so its a little tough. I just tried playing bass a couple of times and that was a little tough. Hopefully we will have a replacement asap.

[Oskar]

I've been playing rhythm guitar for 39 years, and while I can do some lead work I could't do a decent job if a gun was put to my head. Rhythm, however I feel I'm pretty good at. I learned a long time ago that playing rhythm isn't just wanking away at chords, you really need to listen to the drums and bass, and play them accordingly. You bring it up and you bring it down. You can dampen or not. The list goes on. It's true, the lead players are the ones that get the attention, but there always seems to be an overabundance of lead types. I've know a few pretty good lead players who were not very coordinated when it came to playing straight rhythm. I would try to teach them how to dampen or play on the off beat while changing a couple of quick chords, and they're lost. Yeah, I sit in the background, but I like what I do, and I'm always trying to improve it... learn new chords, partials chords, fills, riffs, etc. You don't realize how much it adds until you take the rhythm out of the mix. Yeah, I agree with Matt, I would much rather play rhythm than lead.

[tdp46]

who I always consider a rythmn player even though he has lots of great fills. I don't know if it's a sad admission but I play very much in the same style as him and while I think that people such as Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen are superb guitarists I really don't gell with what they are doing. Or perhaps I'm just a crap guitarist and don't know it. Ignorance is bliss perhaps

[TheGoodTexan]

I've probably got a handle on most every famous lead player's style - from Hendrix, Clapton, etc. to Eddie and forward. I'm by no means claiming to be at their level, but I can pretty much play most of their songs and solos...which starting getting boring a few years ago.

So I starting studying rhythm techniques, and I've got to say that sometimes it's more fun to sit back and let someone else go off all night (be it another guitar player, or keys, or sax, or what ever.)

I think a good rhythm player sometimes has to be a smarter player than a lead guy.

[Raymond]

I like playing rhythm the most, but I like playing the main solos in the music I write. A friend of mine and I would get together, and he'd be the lead guitar and I'd sing (well, we called that singing ) so I'd play rhythm. We'd switch for the solo. It'd be tough at first, but we got pretty good at it.

[curtisstetka]

My band is a trio. Guitar (me), bass, and another guy who activates the drum machine and then plays keys, sax, or flute depending on the song.

We do all original music.

Wailing away on solos can get tiresome. I find I'm much more interested in writing and performing good, tight songs. So I play whatever the song requires and don't worry about making the squealing sounds anymore. I do them occasionally but it ain't the main thing.

[dean]

I still haven't gotten competent or confident enough to do much lead work, so when my buds and I get together to jam, I usually play rhythm. I really enjoy it but still have trouble singing and playing at the same time.

On a related note, some songs have such tremendous rhythm grooves that the lead becomes insignificant. One song that is just stunning is "She's Come Undone" by The Guess Who. That line moves around and (in my ears) makes that song so tuneful. I hope I can eventually get the whole thing down.

Dean

[Jef]

I do mostly rhythm and my occasional solos are mostly chord-based as well. I like the solo in "I fought the law" as played by the Bobby Fuller Four.

[Brad]

Back in my band days, I usually played in trio's, so I had to do both rhythm & lead. I love to play lead, but I'm from the less is more school of soloing. I can scortch and burn when called for, but I would rather play a few choice notes that have some impact rather than subscribe to the mastabatory school of lead playing. Back to rhythm...I love playing rhythm. Getting that groove nailed and moving is an awesome feeling.

[rebelern]

For years I played Leads,and then sort of drifted into a bit of Rhythm,here and there,to thicken up our Bands overall Mix,and I discovered that I was really enjoying this way to express my playing ,in a laid back worthwhile manner.
Current days I'm a Rhythm player,and theres far more to it, than just playing Chords,as previous TDPRI'ers have so well expressed. :D

Ernie.

[stantheman]

Rhythm is so much more important than soloing that it's
not even a contest. The saddest thing in the world is a decent soloist trading off and sucking wind as a rhythm
player and it falls apart in front of an audience (it's also a real good way of humbling a true jerk if you've ever run
into that scenerio). Pete Townsend, Chris Dreja, Allen Wilson, on the one hand and guys like Freddie Green on the other with The Big Bands. Rhythm guys are the ones who make it swing. I've always thought of soloing as
something like throwing jimmys on an icecream sundae.
Rhythm on the other hand is like putting butter,salt&pepper on an ear of really good corn,hmmm
hmmm. Analogys aside, ya gotta do both,and to learn how get the Emily Remler Video;thats the best one I've ever seen at teaching how both work together in concert
with each other. and I didn't forget Keef did I? And Roy Buchanan was one of the most monster rhythm players of all time bar none.

[Adam Waldron]

Yes!

I play rhythm most of the time - then I stop singing and solo :-)

Cheers,

Adam

[Brick]

To me Hendrix was a superb rhythm player. Listen carefully and you find he rarely lets fly with any legnthy single note runs. He had the most inventive hybrid rhythm/lead style ever. That is what I admire. IMHO no one should bother to learn lead before becoming a proficient rythm player.

[jerome]

I agree with stantheman,
If you want to know the importance of rhythm guitar,play lead with a weak rhythm player...you'll sound like Pee Wee Herman amongst his cellmates...followed by uncomfortable silence...

[undafonk]

Originally Posted by stantheman

The saddest thing in the world is a decent soloist trading off and sucking wind as a rhythm
player and it falls apart in front of an audience (it's also a real good way of humbling a true jerk if you've ever run
into that scenerio).

Keeping da ryddim down isn't just easy.

[gtrman911]

Originally Posted by undafonk

Keeping da ryddim down isn't just easy.

NO, the truejerk will say it wasn't him, it was *Your* lead that made it fall apart!

hehe....

I always look to Keefers for my skills. I figgure if'n it's good enuf for the Stones, then it's good enuf fer me!

I always have been, and always will be *just* a rhythm guitarist. That being said, I'd audition for ANY PRO band as such. ANYBODY!

[Oskar]

It's nice to read all the positive comments about not only playing rhythm, but the importance of it. To tdp46 I would say, never, ever, ever consider yourself a crap guitarist if all you can do is rhythm. Think of yourself as the main component in a group setting. Think John Lennon, think Keef (who initially was second fiddle to Brain Jones, who was a master multi-instrument musician), think Edge, and of course as was mentioned here, Pete Townsend. For years I thought I was inferior in my guitar work because I never did the lead stuff, but what was interesting was that I was always in demand. Somehow everyone needed a good rhythm player, even if they stuffed him in the back somewhere. Keep on strummin' 8)

[tweeddeluxe]

I'm primarily a rhythm player and enjoy it immensely. In our band I handle some of the leads and a fair amount of the vocals, but the rhythm parts are what I do best. At home I do enjoy noodling when not learning new songs.

Tom

[weelie]

Originally Posted by eryque

I never liked extended solos as much as I loved tasty fills, but I'm working hard at extending my blues solos past the first turnaround.

My favorite line in any song ever is from "Sultans of Swing"

Check out Guitar George
He knows all the chords

Love that song and the solos... Sweeeet touch and tone!

I too like tasty fills the most. Steve Cropper and such. The all-out SRV-type solos very often go nowhere.

[LarryR]

My favorite thing to do is set up on the hi hat side of the drummer and just tuck myself in close and try to work off of what the drummer is doing and staying locked with him.
Having to think of interseting things to say all night with my lead work gets tedious to me but playing chords and feeling the drummer never gets old.
Larry

[halouis]

well yeah,but no.

i'd prefer to be just a rhythm player as thats my stronger suit, but every band i have ever been in ends up making me a lead player. the band i am in now i started from scratch. i write all the songs, and yet when i bring up the idea of getting another guitar player for lead, they tell me "no".

that said i dont write songs with lots of and big lead breaks. many have none. I'm more about song over technique. of course if i could play like jim campilongo or kim thayil or nels cline things would be different. 8)

[11 Gauge]

...i have become much more mindful of rhythm playing. i am typically the sole guitarist on whatever project i am involved in, so this had to happen.

i learned alot of the more intense licks, but i don't really consider myself a great lead player. i also started getting into players who also modulate back and forth between some tasty fills but primarily chording with arpeggiation, fingerpicking, etc.

what really drove it home was when i started getting into intense recording. at first i would layer things up and then throw lead stuff all over it. the mixes just couldn't breathe. now i will typically do the minimalist thing - pan the rhythm track to the left, and an augmenting track to the right, which has some fills in it. sounds a little funny w/headphones sometimes but alright thru a sound system. and a whole lotta guitarists have done it this way.

my ultimate goal is to just blend it all together, fills, chording, slight variation on chord patterns throughout the song. it just sounds so much better to my ears. and like i said, my lead work just doesn't seem to really cut it anyway.