Welcome to the PREVIEW pf the Art of Reggae Guitar Course 1: The role of the Rhythm Guitar in Reggae Music. (12 video lessons)
This course welcomes all levels of guitarists and focuses on RHYTHM reggae guitar playing. One of the most important and inspiring aspects of reggae music is its love affair with relatively simple, repetitive rhythms, played in layers and communally with other musicians. It is first and foremost meant to move both the musician and the listener on a physical (dancing) and spiritual level. Our primary goal as reggae guitar players is to deliver this rhythmic ecstasy by locking into the proper groove with the proper sound and feel.
In this course you will learn:
* How to work with a metronome to lock in your internal sense of time
* The single and double chop (also called the skank, bang, strum and other names)
* Swing and straight 8th note feel
* How to modulate note content (3 levels)
* Varying levels of sustain length on the chop
* When and how to use down and up strokes
* Chord shapes, positions and voicings
* The proper use of ghost notes
* The articulation (accenting) of the two attacks in a double chop
* Reverb use: for rhythm playing
* How to play the stuck line (doubling the bass)
* 9 different accents used to excite the chop
* How the guitar chop relates to the piano chop & organ bubble
* Using effects pedals for live dub sections
* The Mento strum and how it relates to reggae and ska
* Use of the wawa pedal
This course uses many Art of Reggae ‘originals’ and a few classic Jamaican ‘riddims’ to demonstrate the concepts being taught. ALL of them, including the downloadable leadsheets that appear in the lesson videos are accessible in the Practice Loops section of the site. The guitar practice loops have the guitar track(s) muted and it’s highly recommended that you jam along with these to practice any of the concepts you are learning. They will challenge you to play in different keys with different feels.
The leadsheet PDF’s are written in standard notation with guitar tablature (TAB). If you don’t know how to sight read, don’t worry, just use your ears. This music has been shared and taught more often than not, in a oral fashion, so you can learn everything you want without being able to read a note of music.
Lastly, don’t forget, as explained in the “How To Practice” intro video, make sure you have your notebook ready to go. Let’s dig in!
