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(I am asking this question because someone just posted a question which misused the term "polyrhythm", and subsequently, on realizing the mistake, edited the question to reflect their real question -- thus orphaning a good answer about developing facility with polyrhythms!)
Polyrhythms are awesome. I want to be able to do that in playing guitar. How do you suggest I approach learning to play polyrhythms?
Do the math. Practice by tapping your hands on your legs. Start with 3 against 2. Move on to 4 against 3. You do this one by breaking it up into 12, so:
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So, count the periods, tap the top bars with one hand, and the bottom bars with the other. Now, how do you do, say, 5 against 3? Well, 5x3 is 15. So now, you put 15 dots, and tap every 3 dots in one hand and every 5 dots in the other.
Do it slow enough so you don't make mistakes. Keep at it, and you'll start to get the feel. How you do them on the guitar, though, is someone else's answer. I'm a pianist. :)
BobRodes answer is great, giving you both good suggestions for the kind of polyrhythms to get started with, and a good approach to trying them out (with universal instruments; your hands and legs!)
Below is a simple approach for playing these kind of polyrhythms on guitar: play the bottom notes with your right-hand thumb; the top notes with your right-hand fingers. I've just written a few examples of polyrhythms, but you could come up with loads. Obviously, you would want to try some more interesting chords!
In essence, there is nothing very complicated about these polyrhythms. They are simply two simultaneous pulses at different tempos, created by setting two different note values against each other. But they do create really interesting rhythmic effects, especially once you start to create more complex rhythms, by also using multiples of the top or bottom note values.
It can take a while to work out how to play these kind of polyrhythms though; you might find it useful to enter these rhythm patterns into a DAW or notation software program, so you can listen to how they sound.
I've spent years figuring out this problem. The best way to do it i've found is to learn songs which feature the polyrhythms in question. I'll start with a great video by Guthrie Govan that I Looooooove for understanding odd note groupings.
Check out Steve Vai's Tempo Mental page on his website. that will give you a fantastic in-depth guide to the extremities of polyrhythms, and even a way to pratice(notating speech)
The Bone alphabet by Brian Ferneyhough is way, way out of the playability zone for the majority of players, but the extreme depth of polyrhythms listened to for a while gets your mind in the zone that it can consider polyrhythms
The Black Page by Frank Zappa is a similar piece, along with the majority of Frank Zappa's Music (but be warned, no 2 albums are the same, It's a very difficult soundscape at times)
As far as books go, the book I use is Polyrhythms:The Musician's Guide by Peter Magadinni. It takes you through playing the basic pulses of any polyrhythm up to 13:4. It also includes more complex rhythm patterns within your polyrhythms(for example a 3/4 pattern over a 4/4 pulse).
Hope that helps. Polyrhythms are a wonderful tool once they're natural, but until then you gotta grind it out!
Here's a nice video on how to create your own exercise for any polyrhythm
I've developed an app for Iphone for practicing polyrhythms. If you're interested you can check out our website and see if you find it useful. we also have some videos about methods of practicing.
