One of the most common things I encounter with guitar coaching students is: how to I accurately replicate the style of a song, especially if it’s not performed on acoustic guitar?
Today I’m going to try to give you a couple pointers.
- When listening to a song, try to identify the most important rhythmic component. Is it the back beat (beats 2 and 4) like many reggae and rock songs do? Does the instrumentation provide a strong beat one, like many modern country tunes? Maybe it’s somewhat of a clave beat, like the beginning of Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble”.
- Pay attention to articulation: is this rhythm presented in a staccato fashion? Is it long and flowy? What can you do with your strumming or finger-picking pattern to emulate this?
- Play along with the record. Often, we’re not trying to do exactly what the guitarist is doing, because we are trying to emulate multiple instruments with just our guitar or piano. Listen to the entire arrangement.
- Identify hallmark stylistic characteristics, such as the “spanky” guitar eighth notes in reggae, bass runs in country/bluegrass, power chords and palm muting in punk and metal, etc. If you don’t know how to do some of these, search on YouTube or let me know!
What else helps? I would love to know your approaches to producing authentic accompaniments!
-Matt
