Nice share, James-
but I’m going to have to spin that wheel another couple of times to let it sink in! 
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There’s a scene in the film Strictly Ballroom, one of my favourite little moments, when the male lead (a national champion dancer in need of a new partner) takes the female lead back to her family home … late. They have been practicing their dance moves together and lost track of time.
Soon after Grandma says (in Spanish) “Hot stuff can shake a tail feather but he knows chicken shit about rhythm”.
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Well whenever I think of a rhythm I have JK Simmons in front of my eyes telling me off if it’s not quite his tempo I wanted to post a clip from youtube but with amount of explicit language in there I gave up for obvious reasons
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That is a blast from the past Richard. Not seen that film for years. 
A question that is brought to mind about learning rhythm. If you did have it and then you learn it do you then feel it? Or do you just go though the motions?
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Hi stefan,
The flow, the zone, locking in… eventually you don’t think about it anymore and move or clap or tap or play with and sometimes around and after etc…
Greetings,…
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Thank you all for taking the time to reply, it’s so nice to read you and anything that has been written is helpful in differentways.
I’m afraid it is as @roger_holland says
As pointed out previous negative experiences matter, I don’t mind the hard work of learning it almost from scratch, but anytime the bar is lifted up that emotional content that had been stored in my brain long ago together with the experience “learning rhythm” pops up and freezes me from within myself and no rational thinking is of any help. I fully agree with @jkahn when he says
I work a lot on my basics until I get bored and at the same time it’s difficult to self-assess when I’m ready to raise the bar, as when I try at the very first difficulty there it pops up the disgusted expression on my in-person instructor face ( it’s about 25 years ago now!) telling me “oh no…not really!” I’m lucky enough to be able to see all the progress I made and my purpose is to avoid to make an alibi out of this that would prevent me to progress further. And I’m very lucky I have my happy place for strumming with my kindergarden pupils: there everything comes natural and fun and we do rock with those simple children 'songs, it’s immediate and magical the enjoyment expression on their faces, no doubt even is raised that I can make it! It’s as @Helen0609 says
So I just hope it makes sense to you my attempt to make sense and give a name to my struggles but also to my personal individual positive feeling, as we are all different and perceive and feel differently. I think there are not right or wrong definition and I’m really grateful for each one you gave. I loved especially @stitch’s
and water being mentioned. It reminded me of a classical guitarist who in an interview defined music as the flow of water in a river and the musician as the bed of the river: for the water to flow nicely and smoothly we need to remove any stone or obstacle from ourselves. And I loved as well @alexisduprey’s
@Notter’s definition…
that must be aknowledged as very true and for me and I believe for many a real challenge!
@Jozsef’s definition is one that I can’t visualize well, which is a good reason for me to get deeper and try to understand it
But if @brianlarsen allows for an extra z axis the task might be easier
I need to take some more time to reflect on the other comments and check the links. For now a big thanks to you all 
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Not me either 
We humans can spend a lot of time over-intellectualizing things that come naturally. Sort of like a college course on how to blink your eyes. You don’t need to have a dictionary definition of rhythm to have it, apply it, or understand it.
Rhythm is another expression of the beat. For music with drums the rhythm aids the beat, without drums the rhythm carries the beat. I don’t think the two can be separated easily. Guitar has a percussive nature to it which links rhythm to beat somewhat tightly. Even by playing guitar over a single drone chord a certain beat will emerge.
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Nobody is actually looking for a dictionary definition. What is really interesting is that different definitions have been given by different people and that there are different ways of perceiving, that proves that also my way is legitimate among the others. Also I find that while I don’t use my intelect when I’m playing, using it while I’m not brings my guitar learning to a metacognitive level, which I can assure you is a very good place to be for any kind of learning.
It does have a definition in the dictionary, but that was probably the least significant point that I made. The problem is that as defined, it doesn’t help my guitar playing one bit. A cheat sheet full of strumming patterns doesn’t really help me all that much either. Again, rhythm (for me) is an expression of the beat. If it means something else to you, then that’s cool too.
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I agree on this point…you go on YouTube and compare different tutorials of the same song by different teachers: you won’t find two applying the same pattern ( except of course for songs like Whats Up or Torn if you know what I mean). My point is why do I have to struggle to learn something that is not how I’m feeling the song?! I want to be able to bring my feeling into the way I play that song…and that requires skills, it’s not a natural thing that I can do. I could tell that I actually rock with my air guitar, but bringing it on the real instrument, that’s a different thing.
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We all have to pilot our own ship. For me it is all about finding my own voice on the instrument. For others it is important to approximate original recordings. That’s cool too. There is room for everyone. Justin’s stuff will give you a really good toolkit to work from. If you find something that doesn’t suit you, move on to some other thing that he has to offer. By and large getting the beginner and intermediate courses under your belt will serve you well.
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Thanks for your time and letting me know your point of view, I really appreciate it. Finding one’s own voice, that’s for sure something one needs to aim to
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Hi Silvia,
I started to question how to answer this before clicking on your post. Interesting question to answer! I started to wonder if you really have trouble feeling rhythm or in reproducing on the guitar.
I’ve seen a couple answers of ‘timing’, but I find that incomplete. I would describe ‘rhythm’ as
the combination of timing with note and intensity of the note that creates a distinct pattern
ok, so that sounds a bit text-book. How about an example (you wanted it child simple!)
Think of how a horse walking sounds (I bet you have heard this in a movie if not for real). What hoofbeats are louder? What is the timing of each of those? Are they the exact same tone, or different?
Can you mimic the pattern by drumming your fingers on the table? How did you do it? You probably chose to land the bigger fingers for the louder hoofbeats and maybe even dropped two fingers at the same time or nearly so, or skipped using a finger.
Apply that to a song, same idea, what is the loud bit, soft bit, can you mimic the impression you have from the song by drumming your fingers on the table?
If you can do this, then I would say you are ‘feeling’ the rhythm. Maybe the problem to solve is getting what you feel to be acceptably reproduced on your guitar?
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You hear it and feel it.
I think learning rhythms (or beats…) is like learning guitar, there is always more to learn. When you’re learning a new rhythm you need to slow it down, think consciously, etc etc. And then once you’ve got it, it’s natural.
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Thank you Richard for sharing this, I didn’t know the movie so after the video I did a double check on wikipedia and at the last scene and I think I got the meaning. That was really inspiring
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Thanks for sharing the video, I need sometime to focus on it and maybe try out some of the patterns
Here’s an iOS drum machine app that works on a similar principle. There was a free version, which I tried, but it was too buggy - on my iPad, at least. Not sure if it’s still available.
EDIT: found the free version.
Hi @jkahn, I’m taking my time to reflect on all the comments that you all kindly made. When I read yours I thought “Ok, I already know this”. But then I went back to it a few times with the feeling of me missing something. And what I missed was objectivity (what a news!) As, while I’m reading that same information I already had, given by someone else, I’m able to rationally use it and apply it to myself. Especially when you say
This clearly means that I can and should raise the bar, no matter what my subjectivity wrongly suggests. And face the difficulties in a more rational way. I’m not sure I’m able to explain this well enough for you to understand it. Anyway, thanks a lot for your reply, it’s really useful for me
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Silvia
I am with the school of thought that you have to feel the rhythm. What helps me and will not appeal to others, are my running playlists. A lot of high energy rock but my treadmill running reacts to the dynamics of the song parts. I use a range of tempos from 80/160 BPM up to 90/180 BPM. Focusing on guitar rhythm patterns of just the drum beat and actually feeling it when I am running. That’s really helped me get much tighter timing wise. For example a list I was using the other day was a collection of 83 BPM tracks. But actually they range from 83 up to 83.9 BPM and you can feel the variation, when a track changes. That certainly help me realise when I was speeding up on the tempo on a song I’d be playing, you could feel the change. Other runners may relate to this as well.
The other thing for me, is steering wheel “strumming” when I am listening to music in the car, feeling the rhythm and the patterns as a physical sensation.
Probably a load of tosh but its my tosh and has worked for me.
Cheers
Toby
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