Playing Rhythm Guitar

Rhythm guitar is the act of keeping a strumming beat to support and back up a singer or another instrument. In most cases it is background to a more important part of the ensemble. It supports voice, keyboards or other instruments that have the "spotlight" for the piece.

Rhythm guitar can be played on either electric or acoustic guitars and is dependent on the piece of music. However, for most rhythm players the ability to put more variety into the piece comes more from acoustic guitar and not electric.

Electric guitar rhythm tends to be at the same volume and the same intensity. This is as a result of the guitar being hooked into an amp that is at a set volume. Acoustic guitar can be modified based on how hard you strum in terms of loudness or softness and it tends to sound better when applying some picking to the strings.

That being said, most bands use electric guitar with their songs and most soloist tend to use acoustic guitars with a "pick-up" which is an apparatus which allows the guitar to be played through a speaker so that it is a bit louder. Depending on the type of music, the venue or the preference of the player, either acoustic guitar or electric guitar can be used.

When you play rhythm the propensity of the player is to play chords, which are a series of notes played together to form a sound, verses scales or riffs, which are single notes played at a single time followed by more notes. (this is what lead guitar is except much faster than described here).

If you are interested in learning rhythm guitar start with chord books and learn your basic chords. That is a pretty good stating point for rhythm.