Dynamics

Description

Now that you know how to work on your rhythm, groove and dynamics with a metronome, it's time to put it to work within a simple chord progression.

In the previous lesson we used the 16th notes for the metronome example, but this all applies to any subdivision and any groove. So let's use our 8th note based strumming pattern for this example.

Let's start out by playing it with a medium dynamic not trying to be loud or quiet. Just playing with your normal feel, which hopefully is somewhere down the middle.

And if you realize in this tutorial that your “normal” dynamic level is either super intense or super quiet, you're gonna want to work on the other extremes and find a sweet spot in between. Try to match my level of intensity for now.

So we'll go once through the progression with a medium dynamic. This is the dynamic that would often fit a verse section.

Then we'll play the progression with a louder dynamic and more intensity. This is the dynamic intensity that would typically fit a chorus. We're not trying to be loud, but we are strumming with more force and intensity- within the limits of what sounds musical of course.

Be careful not to speed up or get ahead of the beat. If this is causing you trouble, you'll just have to go back and use the exercise from the previous lesson with this new progression.

Then right on the first downbeat of the next time through the progression we'll drop to be super quiet. This kind of dramatic drop is not super common in a standard song form, but it can be a really fun tool to use from time to time if you can pull it off. So play as quietly as you can without losing the beat or the mechanics of the strumming pattern. Notice that playing really quietly requires as much technical skill as playing loud, if not more.

Finally we'll play the progression once with the normal dynamics and end the example on a G major chord that we let ring.

Now let's try this out with a metronome. It might be tempting to do it with a backing track, but I still want you to focus on the mechanics of it all for a little bit longer, before we start getting full on musical with it. It's perfectly okay to play along with my demonstration now, but this exercise really reveals it's powers, once you do it on your own afterwards.