Reggae and Ska Rhythm

Hola GMC!

Welcome to the SKA and Reggae style of playing.

In this lesson I'm gonna teach some rhythm techniques for easy ska reggae and dub style music.
The basic idea of playing this style is a muted down-stroke with a clipped (played quickly and muted) up-stroke or clipped down-stroke on the treble-side of the strings.

Rhythmically, there are several variations. The most common nowadays in popular reggae is the "one-two/one-two" meter, but actually originally the "reggae beat" was based on a five-count, like "one-and-two/one-two" or reversed "one-two/one-and-two". Probably the most important thing to sound reggae-ish is the muted down-beat and the clipped up-beat or clipped treble-down (played on 3 or 4 bottom strings).

In this lesson you will find three basic variations. Combinations of these variations can contribute to each new round sounds more fresh and groovy (more or less), depending on the arrangement of the song.

Guitar : PRS SE Singlecut model

Equipment : Sonar8 DAW, Guitar Rig5 plugin, Addictive drums

Tempo : 120 bpm

Signature : 4/4

Chord progression : A,Bm ,D,E