Originally Posted by Mark Kaufman
the strum has no rhythm

My advice to this sort of lyricist is always the same: whatever you write, keep its rhythm consistent...it's not the exact syllable count so much as the rhythm of the lyrical lines that needs to match the same melodic passage.



I'm one of the rhythmically challenged strummers. I've had a guitar for probably 35 years and it's still the same "chunk-chunk-chunk" rhythm it's always been. One reason is a childhood arm injury and one reason is laziness. A problem for the last few years has been loss of strength in my left arm/hand and increasing arthritic pain in both hands. But rhythm does not come naturally for me.

A few years ago I bought a new classical guitar with a wider fingerboard which in some ways helps but on some chords my fingers still go to the narrow fingering on my old guitar.

Your advice on lyrical rhythm is right on IMO. Years ago I heard the syllable thing and it messed me up for quite some time. Then I realized for me at least it was the rhythm of the words rather than the syllables--the beats had to be the same.

When I do a song, I usually have a tune. I tweak that tune a lot more than I tweak the words. Some musicians have trouble them sometimes but they seem to work for me. When I play them myself, I can never play them like my mind hears them. There was one where, every time I sang acapella, there was an extra line that I just couldn't do when I played it on the guitar.

Last edited by eb; 06/21/09 10:35 AM.