The Trick of the Hidden Motives

Today we're going to see a great way of using rhythms to create interesting guitar solos. I call this method "Hidden rhythmic motives", because I'd repeat a rhythmic motif several times, but in a slightly indirect way.

As you can hear in the sound clip below (which is from one of my songs called Mosquito Bite), in the first 3 bars, the last 4 notes of each bar have an identical rhythm (a quarter note and three eighth notes). However, the first few notes are different in each bar, so the recurring rhythmic motives are used in a more subtle way, it is not an obvious repetition, which can sometimes sound too direct.

In the 4th bar, there is a playful little combined arpeggio (sweep and tap and slide). I've used it here because it is almost always a good idea to play something totally fresh after 3 repetitions of the hidden motives.

See you next time!