We have to check out the beats in the bar so we know how many times to strum our chords.

Video Lesson

It's all down from here

A bar is a great place to have a beer. It is also a musical term that we use to divide time in music.

For now, all bars will contain 4 beats (this can change later but playing 4 beats in a bar is by far the most common). The down beat is the count 1 2 3 4. For now that is all we are looking at. And all I want you to do is to be able to strum down 4 times, while you count along. Easy :)

Rhythm for many people is the trickiest to learn so we are going to start simple and get a solid foundation. This is very easy and I hope that none of you have too much of a problem with this one, the hard part is just keeping the timing as consistent as possible.

It really helps to count along as you play so you always know where the bar starts. When we start playing songs, you will find that we nearly always change chord at the strat of a bar, so it is very important that you "know where 1 is".

We'll be getting a lot harder later, but what you should be doing here is trying to get this very siomple idea deep in your mind so that you just do it naturally and don't have to think about it. Just use all down strums and keep it consistent.

Try and keep the strumming at an even volume too - not some loud and some quiet.

There are other time signatures (bars that have a different number of beats in them), but we'll be saving them for a lot later, this whole beginners course pretty much stays in 4:4.

I know this is super easy right, but give it time to sink in and become instinctive, so you don't have to think about it.

Do it over and over and try and keep the rhythm as consistent as you can.

Not it's time to apply them in the next lesson: BC-117 • Easy Songs for Stage 1

HELP!!!!

If you need to ask a question about this lesson - there is a topic set up specifically to help you with this lesson. To help you find it easily you can click the following link and it will take you right the topic. You'll be able to see questions that other people had and ask your own questions! Hopefully one of the very helpful members of our community will be there to help you soon, I do go there and answer stuff too - but there are just too many questions for me to answer alone! So click this link to get help with this lesson!

Justinguitar Beginner's Products

I have four great beginners products that will help you make the most of this course. Most popular is The Justinguitar Beginners Songbook which contains 100 songs arranged by difficulty that perfectly match up with each level of the course. Many people told me they like books more than web pages so we've made The Justinguitar Beginners Course Book (comes with 2 x CD's too!) and many people found being online to watch the videos a pain so we offer The Justinguitar Beginners Course DVD which also means you can watch the vids in much better quality. Together they complete the whole online course and are perfect when there is no internet connection!! Also very popular is Practical Music Theory for those that like to know what they are doing and why!! It covers very basic theory in an easy to digest way and puts it onto the guitar! They are all available in Bundle Packs too where you can save a bunch of money!! Buying products and making donations help keep the site free and growing! :)