This lesson covers right hand rhythm technique. Matt introduces syncopated strumming patterns.
Taught by Matt Brown in Reading Music and Rhythm seriesLength: 25:38Difficulty: 2.5 of 5
Matt brings all of his years of education right to you with this fantastic series on how to read music. You will start with the very basics and work up to some very advanced concepts.
Lesson 1
This introductory lesson will walk you through the basics of reading music and reading rhythm.
Length: 15:07 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 2
Learn how to identify notes, the key signature, and the staff. Implement your reading skills by playing a few simple tunes.
Length: 43:32 Difficulty: 1.5 FREELesson 3
Learn the basics of notation and time signatures. Practice these concepts with a few timing exercises.
Length: 22:01 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 4
Now that you've learned a bit about 4/4 time, it's on to 3/4 time.
Length: 22:20 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 5
Now that you know the basics of reading music, it's time to put that knowledge to work with some exercises.
Length: 25:43 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 6
Get some more practice reading music and rhythms during your rock fest rendition of "On Top of Old Smokey".
Length: 15:54 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 7
Matt Brown reviews the G major scale and teaches "He's Got the Whole World".
Length: 13:18 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 8
Matt Brown explains how to read music in the key of F major. He uses the song "Amazing Grace" as an example.
Length: 15:22 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 9
Matt Brown teaches the song "Shoo, Fly" as another excellent rhythm and reading example. This song is in the key of G.
Length: 14:46 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 10
Matt Brown returns with the 10th installment in his Reading and Rhythm series. In this lesson, Matt discusses key signatures.
Length: 14:09 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 11
In this lesson Matt Brown covers the first minor key song in this series, "Aura Lee".
Length: 12:11 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 12
In this lesson, Matt introduces the A Dorian mode. He applies it to the song "Scarborough Fair".
Length: 16:29 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 13
In lesson 13, Matt Brown discusses and demonstrates second position.
Length: 29:52 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 14
Lesson 14 is all about rhythm. Matt Brown discusses its importance and provides several exercises.
Length: 20:17 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 15
Matt Brown reviews "On Top of Old Smokey". This time around, the melody is played in second position.
Length: 7:56 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 16
For lesson 14, Matt Brown reviews "Angels We Have Heard On High". The melody is now played in second position.
Length: 12:02 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 17
Matt Brown reviews the song "Shoo, Fly" in second position.
Length: 8:56 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 18
This lesson covers right hand rhythm technique. Matt introduces syncopated strumming patterns.
Length: 25:38 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 19
Matt teaches the melody to "Down by the Riverside". This tune is used as preparation for learning accompaniment techniques.
Length: 15:02 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 20
Matt uses the song "Down by the Riverside" to teach accompaniment techniques for rhythm backing.
Length: 12:31 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 21
Matt teaches the classic tune "Fur Elise" in a two part series. For Part 1, Matt demonstrates the melody section.
Length: 24:03 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 22
In lesson 22, Matt teaches the accompaniment sections to Beethoven's "Fur Elise".
Length: 13:12 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 23
Lesson 23 starts a 2 part series on the classic tune "The Entertainer".
Length: 16:30 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 24
Lesson 24 completes the two part series on "The Entertainer". You will learn the accompaniment in this lesson.
Length: 14:06 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 25
Matt starts another 2 part lesson, this time on the tune "Sea to Sea" by William G. Leavitt.
Length: 20:36 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 26
Lesson 26 completes Matt's 2 part series on "Sea to Sea".
Length: 10:17 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 27
Matt introduces the B flat major scale and teaches the song "Stars and Stripes Forever".
Length: 21:31 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 28
Matt completes his two part series on "Stars and Stripes Forever" by teaching the accompaniment.
Length: 7:39 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 29
Matt Brown teaches the D Major scale in both first and second positions.
Length: 17:55 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 30
Matt Brown demonstrates "Danny Boy" in both first and second positions.
Length: 16:28 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 31
Matt Brown teaches the accompaniment to the "Danny Boy" melody.
Length: 12:03 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 32
Matt teaches the Christmas classic "Silent Night."
Length: 18:17 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 33
Matt teaches the accompaniment to the "Silent Night" melody.
Length: 4:55 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 34
Matt Brown teaches "Funiculi Funicula" as an exercise in reading and playing in 6/8 time.
Length: 14:39 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 35
Matt Brown teaches the accompaniment to "Funiculi Funicula".
Length: 16:40 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 36
In lesson 36, Matt provides exercises to help you strum triplet patterns.
Length: 23:30 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 37
In lesson 37, Matt Brown demonstrates how to strum sixteenth note rhythms.
Length: 17:28 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 38
Matt Brown demonstrates the melody and tips for playing the Russian folk tune "Song of the Volga Boatmen".
Length: 11:33 Difficulty: 0.5 Members OnlyLesson 39
In lesson 39, Matt teaches the accompaniment to "Song of the Volga Boatmen".
Length: 8:35 Difficulty: 1.5 Members OnlyLesson 40
Matt Brown teaches and demonstrates "Dance of the Ukraine."
Length: 15:37 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 41
Matt demonstrates the accompaniment to the "Dance of the Ukraine" melody.
Length: 13:36 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 42
Matt Brown teaches an etude for classical guitar by Ferdinando Carulli.
Length: 21:20 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 43
Matt Brown teaches the melody section to "Morning" by Edvard Grieg.
Length: 18:44 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 44
Matt teaches the accompaniment for Edvard Grieg's "Morning."
Length: 8:08 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 45
Matt Brown teaches Bach's classic Minuet.
Length: 14:55 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 46
In lesson 46, Matt Brown covers the accompaniment section to Bach's Minuet.
Length: 5:53 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 47
Matt Brown teaches Bach's "Little Prelude in C."
Length: 16:23 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 48
Matt Brown teaches the accompaniment to "Little Prelude in C" by Bach.
Length: 7:49 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 49
Matt Brown teaches the 2nd guitar part to Muzio Clementi's famous "Sonatina."
Length: 23:46 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 50
Matt Brown teaches Invention #1 composed by J.S. Bach.
Length: 21:42 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 51
Matt takes a look at playing in third position. This lesson will set up future reading lessons that require the third position.
Length: 7:16 Difficulty: 0.0 Members OnlyLesson 52
Matt Brown has you working through Jean Philippe Rameau's Minuet for third position playing in lesson 52. He provides a play along and accompaniment to help your sight reading and playing.
Length: 15:11 Difficulty: 0.0 Members Only
About Matt Brown
View Full Biography
Matt Brown began playing the guitar at the age of 11. "It was a rule in my family to learn and play an instrument for at least two years. I had been introduced to a lot of great music at the time by friends and their older siblings. I was really into bands like Nirvana, Alice In Chains, and Smashing Pumpkins, so the decision to pick up the guitar came pretty easily."
Matt's musical training has always followed a very structured path. He began studying the guitar with Dayton, Ohio guitar great Danny Voris. I began learning scales, chords, and basic songs like any other guitarist. After breaking his left wrist after playing for only a year, Matt began to study music theory in great detail. I wanted to keep going with my lessons, but I obviously couldn't play at all. Danny basically gave me the equivalent of a freshman year music theory course in the span of two months. These months proved to have a huge impact on Brown's approach to the instrument.
Brown continued his music education at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. He completed a degree in Classical Guitar Performance in 2002. While at Capital, he also studied jazz guitar and recording techniques in great detail. "I've never had any desire to perform jazz music. Its lack of relevance to modern culture has always turned me off. However, nothing will improve your chops more than studying this music."
Matt Brown currently resides in Dayton, Ohio. He teaches lessons locally as well as at Capital University's Community Music School. Matt's recent projects include writing and recording with his new, as of yet nameless band as well as the formation of a cover band called The Dirty Cunnies.
Our acoustic guitar lessons are taught by qualified instructors with various backgrounds with the instrument.
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Member Comments about this Lesson
Discussions with our instructors are just one of the many benefits of becoming a member of JamPlay.Hi Matt, I am slightly confused. It sounds like you said that E is the 6th in the key of C major. Wouldn't that be A though. Am I missing something?
Good catch! In Scene 2, Matt does mis-speak and call the Em chord the "6" Em in the key of C would actually be a minor 3 chord.
Can not watch the lesson it keeps stopping.
great stuff
great lesson. really helped me, thanks!
No problem! Glad it helped you out!
Thanks Matt. Yep, I get it. Last point well made. Love the work ethic to this series of lectures.....And the variety is so well paced. I'm learning so much....joyously! It's me that's been deaf!!!!
Oophs...apologies Matt, I have gone and blinded Evelyn. She is as you probably know profoundly deaf. And what an ambassador for music...she hears the sound of silence.
Yo! I'm definitely familiar with her...She first popped up on my radar due to her work with the late great Michael Kamen. I haven't seen the Ted special, but I'll add it to my never-ending list of things to check out. On the ghost strumming, be very cautious about eliminating ghost strumming from your playing. "Ghosting" is extremely helpful when it comes to playing totally in the pocket. It helps you "frame" the rhythm...Otherwise, when you begin to learn more complex and syncopated rhythms, your rhythms may be milliseconds off, which the listener will definitely perceive on some level...It's also extremely important to subdivide rhythms in your head and with your body when playing at very slow tempos...Try playing the last two exercises at 40-50 bpm with a metronome. Try it with ghost strumming and without...I think you'll see what I'm getting at...Thanks for the comments!
Thanks Matt. V interesting. It's got to yhe point where I don't ghost strum....but feel the pause. But agree re the checking. Apropso of this....there is a wonderful development of the point you made by the blind percussionist Evelyn Glennie on the TED site. Cheers.
As the last 3 exercises got more complex it messed with my head. So I just turned away from the monitor and listened to the beat of the rhythm. I found this (for me) to be the most effective way of picking it up...as long as I took account of the ghost strum on the opening silent 8th. What you think Matt?
The five senses and the way that they work together are pretty interesting to say the least. Personally, if I close my eyes and eliminate the sense of sight, I'm able to hear things better...It's not a drastic difference. I would almost go so far as to say the difference isn't even noticeable on a surface level. It's kind of a subconscious thing. When I'm transcribing lessons here on JamPlay, I don't watch the videos. At this point, I find that my eyes deceive me more often than they help me. That wasn't always the case though...When I was much younger and didn't know so much musical vocabulary, it would probably would have been easier to have a visual reference.
However, I should mention that once you can play these rhythms, go back to the notation and make sure that you understand exactly how what you are hearing / playing corresponds to the standard notation. These rhythms are common and will pop up again and again as you continue to play, learn songs, etc.
Hi, Matt: Thanks for always making a complete "About this lesson" tab! It helps a lot or is at least nice to have.
You're welcome! I actually quit doing those in 2008-2009 though, so you probably won't see them for anything since then unfortunately. I did them for my own lessons and the other instructors' lessons too. We just got to a point as a company where I didn't have enough time to do the tablature/notation for the lessons and the "about" tab, so we let the "about" tab go. It's pretty tough to find someone that knows guitar, theory, and can write a complete sentence. ;)Chris Liepe did some of his own too, but I think he's too busy with other work on the site to continue doing them.
Hey Matt, great series. Can you explain what the difference is between using quarter notes as done in measure 9 verses two eighth notes tied together in measure 13? If I'm following everything correctly, they seem to acheive the same thing.
Hey! You're right. Two eighth notes tied together are held for the same length of time as one quarter note. Basically, in 4/4, the rule is that the measure is separated into two halves - each containing two beats. A tie is used in the measure that you're talking about, because it is technically wrong to sandwich a quarter note in the middle of the measure. It breaks the rule of having a total of two beats on each side of the measure. The tie makes the rhythm easier to read on the fly.
Thanks for the less and that is the best way for me to learn the F barre chord.
Hey! No problem! I'm guessing that you meant to ask "what is the best way to learn the F barre chord." If so, check out the following lessons: Matt Brown - Phase 2 Rock Lesson 11 Hawkeye Herman - Phase 2 Blues Lesson 82 Dennis Hodges - Phase 2 Metal Lesson 5 - The technical exercises in this lesson will build up the independence between your left hand fingers as well as the overall flexibility of the finger and hand muscles. These are all necessary skills when it comes to playing barre chords.
Matt Both you and Jim helped me out in a big way with these lessons, and with doing them with a metronome! Thank you again and Keep on Rockin'!!!
Hey Ronin! Glad to hear it! I definitely wish that I had started practicing with a metronome from day one. I think it helps more than anything else.
It does get frustrating at times but what doesnt kill you makes you stronger.
Hi! I consider the information in this series to be of a beginner level. I think these lessons and Jim's reading lessons are good to work through in conjunction with the Phase 1 stuff. I would work on reading music regardless of what level you are currently at. Try to work some of it in each week.
Nice lesson, Matt. I watched this lesson because it appeared on the homepage and I was curious. Where in one's learning should this series fall? You're explaining the most primary chords, but also theory. It definitely seems followable. But I was just curious if I should do a different series first? I know a lot of isolated things but have pretty gaping holes in my knowledge of the guitar. Thanks. Rhythm is something I definitely want to master.