This is the rhythm guitar part to Muddy Waters's "Got My Mojo Working". I would like to know what beats the chords land on for this measure. I only know that the first chord lands on the and of 1. Can someone please help me?
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That's only part of your problem! See my comment under Aaron's answer for the rest.– Tim2 days ago
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3 Answers
A graphical supplement to @HaveProblemsEveryday's answer with strumming pattern suggested by @Tim (see comments below).
Note that the chords occur on every third sixteenth note (semiquaver).
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Anoter point relevant to the OP's problem then is - what strumming pattern works best? Personally, I'd be playing d,u,d,u, for each beat, to keep the arm moving rhythmically, then hit the strings on the appropriate places, as you indicate.– Tim2 days ago
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@Tim By each beat, you mean each sixteenth? Please confirm, and I'll add that to the graphic.– Aaron2 days ago
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Each semiquaver takes a strum, starting down, so 16 separate strums per bar. Others might 'stutter' their strum pattern, but that then means it will only work for that one pattern - and I don't believe that (or any) strum pattern would be used for the entirety of the (or any) song.– Tim2 days ago
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Aaron's comment here comes the closest IMO to explaining this rhythm from the point of view that probably produced it: It's simply counting running 16ths, and playing on every third one. But note, you have to reset the count at the start of the bar, so there's a gap of four 16ths between the last note in the bar and the first that you play in the next bar. In other words, you might count to yourself "1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 ..." 2 days ago
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1Showing the underlying 16ths above the rhythm makes this rhythm much easier to understand, +1. @AndyBonner your count is a little off at the end, it should be: ||: 1231231231231231 :|| (with notes on all of the 3’s). 2 days ago
Since we are dealing with sixteenth notes here, we can break the bar in to
1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a
The first chord is on the and of 1
The second chord is on the e of 2
The third chord is right on 3
The fourth chord is on the a of 3
The fifth chord is on the and of 4
Often, what I have found helps me when dealing with tricky rhythms is to count out the beats and write them under the bar to know where each note is played.
Start by finding the quarter note beats:
Since there are sixteenth note subdivisions here, you can count 1-e-and-a 2-e-and-a 3-e-and-a 4-e-and-a and so on. Now you can see which subdivisions the notes fall on: the "and" of 1, the "e" of 2, the 3, and the "and" of 4.
Something else you should notice: four of the five notes have a dot above them. These dots are articulation marks which mean that these notes should be played staccato.
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Of course, the notes marked staccato are eighths, and the one not is a 16th; it's likely that the 8ths are to be played as short as 16ths, and it was all notated this way because making them all 16ths would be even busier. 2 days ago
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1@AndyBonner -- I'm not sure that I agree that using 16ths would be busier; then all rests would be eighth rests, and in some ways this might communicate the syncopated rhythm more clearly. On the other hand, these are probably chord stabs which may be better thought of as staccato since they wouldn't be thought of as having precise duration. In any case, I didn't intend a critique of the posted notation, only an exposition of what is there.– user865452 days ago