How Do You Learn Tricky Rhythms?

This week I was teaching an adult student how to play the following arrangement of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door:

This arrangement is by Chris Murrin of the YouTube channel Six String Fingerpicking. Here is a link to the sheet music.  And here is a link to a video lesson on that channel. 

My student found the basic G, D, Am and C chord shapes in this arrangement to be easy.

The hard part of this arrangement is the rhythm.

The steps I walked my student through can help you on any piece where you struggle with rhythm.

1. Listen to a Recording

This is one of the best ways to absorb the rhythm and let it become ingrained in your mind.

2. Play Only on Each Beat

Years ago, I heard the advice “Never mess with the head nod.” In other words, if you’re nodding your head to the beat, that basic sense of beat should not be disrupted.

To help make sure this is the case, you can practice only playing on the beats.

In working with my student, we did this one measure at a time through the first 9 measures of the piece.

So, for measure 2 of the arrangement my student was learning, here is how this would go:

3. Play the Rhythm Within Each Beat

For measure 2 of this arrangement, below is each individual beat.

The first beat is just the A bass note:

The second beat is a dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth. If this rhythm is new to you, you may need to repeat it several times to get the feel for it.

The third beat is steady sixteenths.

The last beat is two sixteenth notes followed by an eighth note. Again, if this rhythm is new to you, you may need to repeat it several times.

 4. Play Each Measure to the Next Downbeat

By playing to the downbeat of the next measure, you put each rhythm in context.

Here is how this would go for measure 2 of the above arrangement:

If you’re playing a piece with tricky rhythms, try this approach and let me know what you think.

If you want to walk through some tricky rhythms with me in a lesson, feel free to email me at [email protected], and we can make that happen.

Keep making music!