How To Improve Your Rhythm & Timing When Playing Guitar

If your timing is a little all over the place, it’s best to begin by going back to basics. This doesn’t mean strumming campfire chords, this means basics, like tapping your foot or clicking your fingers in time to a metronome or song. If you can’t click your fingers or tap out a rhythm in time to the metronome, it’s highly likely that you can’t play a guitar part in time, so take the time to work on embodying rhythm in these more basic ways first. 

Even dancing or head banging along to your favourite song can help lock in your sense of rhythm so why not get out of the practice seat and groove along to the track you’re working on to internalise a sense of pulse. You can also take this a step further by counting aloud or singing the guitar part you’re going to be playing so that when the time comes to sit with the guitar you are totally confident in the tempo and rhythmic content of the song you are tackling. 

It’s surprisingly easy not to notice if you are rushing ahead of a track, dragging behind the beat, or not quite nailing the rhythm of a section when you are absorbed in the experience of playing. So much of the focus of guitar players is consumed with playing the correct notes, bending in tune, minimising unwanted string noises, or changing accurately between chords. Being locked in with timing can be something that we assume will just happen as a byproduct of hitting the right notes, but that certainly isn’t always the case. This is where it is important to be able to critically analyse what you’re playing whilst you aren’t distracted by all the other factors involved. 

Record what you’re playing whether that’s in a DAW, on your phone camera, or simply on your voice notes app, and listen back to it without the guitar in hand to really pay attention to your timing. It’s actually best if you come back to the recording and listen after a bit of a break from playing (this could be after 20 minutes whilst you grab a quick cup of coffee or it could be the following day after you’ve slept on what you’ve learned) as this will give you the most unbiased listening experience. 

Our internal experience of playing a guitar part and the external product can be pretty different, so listen with fresh ears and be honest with yourself. Do you sound like you’re playing too fast and leaving phrases unfinished? Does your playing sound sluggish? Does the way you’re playing a riff sound like the original or is something just a bit off? Try to work out what you’re hearing and correct it, even if that means initially feeling like you’re forcing yourself to go too slowly or quickly, take the feedback your ears are giving you and adjust accordingly. 

A particularly helpful method for getting rhythms right is to assign words to match rhythmic note groupings. For example, you may have heard some people counting triplets with the word ‘pine-a-pple’ or ‘straw-be-rry’. These three syllable words, naturally have the same rhythmic flow as a triplet. For a large number of people, words come a little more naturally than numbers given that we use a myriad of them each day. 

You can take this concept and apply it to anything you want, particularly if there’s an awkward time signature. Say you encounter something really complex such as a one bar of seven, followed by two triplets, and a group of five. 

This sounds like a headache to count but if we take a seven syllable phrase such as (to stick with the foodie theme) :  ‘blue-be-rry and a-pple pie’, then two iterations of ‘pine-a-pple’, and finally the five syllable phrase ‘straw-berr-ies and cream’, and vocalise them together - you have actually counted a very complex time signature grouping aloud. 

The trick with this is not to add any undue pauses between phrases, and be sure to really sound those syllables out evenly. You would be amazed how this can transform complex, intimidating, and hard to remember rhythmic information into a total breeze and even a bit of fun if you get creative with the words you use. If you are struggling to get a rhythmic picking pattern under your fingers, break it down into bite sized pieces, assign any word you like with a matching number of syllables or feel, and say it aloud as you play.

If you have the opportunity to do so, getting in a practice room with a good drummer will help you immeasurably with your ability to lock in with what the rhythm section is doing. Live drums can allow you to physically feel the beat much more clearly than most headphones or speakers will, and a great drummer will let you know if you’re rushing or dragging and where the important rhythmic points are happening. 

There’s something about the experience of playing songs live, in a room with others, that is far more revealing than simply playing along to tracks at home. If your rhythmic accuracy is poor, other players will get thrown off or confused and it will quickly become apparent what the problems are. You can also experience collectively ‘feeling’ a tempo with other musicians in a space which is not only great fun, it also will hone your sense of rhythm more than most at home practice exercises. 

A great rhythm section supports even the most adventurous guitar playing and learning a few bass lines can be the perfect way to develop your ear for rhythm. 

Many iconic bass lines utilise single note lines rather than chords, which can help to keep rhythm as a more central focus, and where the guitar can be slightly more forgiving when the distortion is dialled up to the max, sloppy bass playing will really stand out. It’s not totally necessary to even own a bass for this, you could learn the parts on your guitar and you will still reap the benefits of paying extra attention to whats happening in the rhythm section. 

In many ways, the more simple and repetitive a line you can learn, the better. This will provide minimal distractions in terms of pitch and tone, whilst challenging you to maintain accuracy in rhythm and timing over longer sections of music - it’s surprisingly difficult to stay totally in the pocket with a very repetitive and simple riff!

An essential step to improving your rhythm guitar playing is to recognise that the guitar is employed in music more often as a rhythm instrument than it is as a lead or top line melody instrument. As such, you should treat the instrument accordingly and avoid the pitfalls of being so invested in shredding solos that you can’t hold down a basic twelve bar blues backing. Viewing rhythm playing as some how less important or less exciting than lead playing will only hold you back from getting the most out of your guitar. 

If you want real rhythmic excitement, why not learn some metal rhythm parts with fast picking and polyrhythms, or some funk parts that require tight yes expressive right hand flare. Make sure that you learn entire songs, not just the solos, and that you treat the rhythm part with equal attention rather than as an extra chore. 

Ask yourself the same questions about your rhythm playing as you would your leads : do the notes sound clear and accurate? Is the phrasing correct? Are you utilising sufficient dynamic control? Go through the same learning processes that you would for a solo including beginning solely and building speed with a metronome and paying attention to each little detail of what is being played.