4 Great Rhythm Guitar Jam Ideas
Have you ever found yourself in a jam with other musicians not knowing what to play? In this guitar lesson you will learn how to create rhythm guitar ideas over a simple groove. These 8 great rhythm guitar ideas should kick start your imagination and help you to develop your own ideas over other grooves and chord progressions.
The groove used here is based around the drums playing quick 16th notes on the hi-hat. The chords are A minor with a little bit of C D and G major. So the key is A minor meaning that you can improvise using notes from the A minor pentatonic, A blues scales and the A Dorian mode.
The first idea is a simple 16th note rhythm matching the high-hat and additional 8th note C D G A notes matching the bass at the end of the bars. You could also mix this 16th note rhythm with 8th notes to make it more interesting. These 16th notes are palm muted while the other 8th notes aren’t to help you create accents. Down/up picking is recommended when playing these fast 16th notes.
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Jam Rhythm #1 | Download |
The next idea is very similar to the previous one but with the addition of power chords at the start of the bar and for the C D and G chords. The power chords help to break up the 16th note rhythm.
This sort of playing is effectively used in the hit song “Eye Of The Tiger” by Survivor from the Rocky III soundtrack.
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Jam Rhythm #2 | Download |
Rhythm guitar idea #3 plays the root A note an octave higher with the addition of a G note hammering-on to the A note to break up all the A notes. A little riff is added at the end of the bars using the root notes of the C D G A chords and the notes of the A minor Pentatonic scale.
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Jam Rhythm #3 | Download |
Idea #4 uses the A blues and A minor pentatonic scales to create a descending riff similar to something you might here played by guitarist Tom Morello in a Rage Against The Machine song.
Try and create your own riff going up the scale verses the example which goes down the scale.
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Jam Rhythm #4 | Download |