I shall I proceed?

I have been "playing" guitar for more years than I care to admit and I have been stuck in the same rut for a long time. I can play all the basic chords besides "B" very fluently and I have a decent understanding of the pentatonic scale. At this point when I pick up my guitar I generally just do what I would call noodle around. I do very well with techniques such as bending and hammering etc.
The problem I have is two fold. The most important one is the fact that I can not hold a rhythm to save my life. That is important because I now find myself trying to play my guitar at Church and I am horrible at playing with other musicians. I am looking for suggestions as to where I should start in the lesson plan here at Guitar Tricks to help get my rhythm playing up to speed enough that I do not create a huge distraction at Church. I guess I have to undo years of bad practicing and playing.

Ronnie

Hey Ronnie -

I would suggest going through the core lessons from the very beginning. At first you will find it easy and fly through, but you'll hit a point where it's new. From there, you can slow down and focus.

I was exactly in your position playing with a church group. I could play competently, but I found it really hard to keep up with the chord changes and keep the rhythm with the group. The good news for you is that this situation gives you the perfect opportunity to improve tremendously in this area.

What I did was I recorded our practice sessions. I would then spend hours playing along with my recording fine tuning my strumming and chord changes. With the way things are today, you can even slow the music down without changing the key to help you get it down.

Also, whenever you are practicing - whether it's "noodling" around or playing through songs, use a drum beat or a meternome. This will help you keep in time.

Best of luck! Ask questions here if you need to.

I second the suggestion from maggior to use a drum machine or metronome when you practice. Your rhythm will get much better. This problem is actually quite common, and you can fix it just by adding this one habit of using a metronome or drum machine.