In this guitar lesson there are mostly five to seven types of rhythmic patterns to be covered: Funk, Rock, Blues, Pop, Twang, Acoustic and Jazz. We are told that we will develop better rhythm chops and be taught techniques to spice up our playing using bubble parts, voicings, extensions, triple stops and fills. In each part of the software package You get 2 lessons per style and 4 short digital videos for each style. 3 x 20 = 60 in total.
Swing sixteenths funk groove is first. Brad creates a scenario where we are in the studio and presented a track and shown how someone with Brads' years of professional guitar playing experience would approach the piece to add some fills to the already recorded bass and drums.
There is a jam track and an accompanying .PDF file accessible through the player interface. The .PDF is one large single page but has some good diagrams in fact some excellent diagrams. Especially the one that shows all the Key of E's Tri-tones and Dom 7& arpeggios. Brad tends to speak as though he's in a hurry and on a schedule. I often confuse his saying an B note for D note because he doesn't enunciate slowly enough. Brad you talk too fast buddy!
I am into Video 2 of lesson one and Brad says that our starting point should be D (flat 7) and E (1) notes on the third and fourth strings and that we should bubble pick. We use those string articulations because much as Goldilocks preferred the little bears soup as being 'just right' so are these mid range voicings. Not squeaky high or too profundo basso either (a deep heavy bass voice with an exceptionally low range). It helps if you know your, string names, fret note names, octave centers and scales so you can play along with more comprehension. Brad teaches us arpeggios from a rhythm guitar stand point and does offer a lot of sage advice. There are even times when he doesn't want us to be too guitaristic and to think voicings like a piano player.
For example about 'guide tones' within the dominant 7 shapes. The one, the three, the five, the seven of the scale makes up the chord. He talks about Tri-tones and explains them better than I have seen elsewhere albeit very briefly. But you do get the complimentary diagrams. He talks about note clusters to bubble pick with using roots and fifths being only the start and that we can add for color the third and the flat seven. Then you vary the combinations and he shows you how to use fewer notes and not muddy the mix which is critical in funk rhythm. This is very useful guitar knowledge to have!
It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
Aristotle Onassis