Demonstration, 5 min 57 sec, 27.2 MB Flash Video
smaller screen version available on You Tube
This is one of a series of fourteen electric hammered dulcimer demonstration videos, described in detail in
"Instrumental Demonstrations: Sounds and Rhythm Styles".
The title of Folk and Rock is really a broad generalization for both upbeat and driving rhythms. If I played guitar to the same songs, I’d be strumming fast chords, not playing finger-style. Slower styles are covered in the video on Rhythms for Ballads, just as Syncopated Rhythms covers that general style, and again a similiar generalization. Both Folk and Rock have both slow ballads, syncopated beats, and driving beats, this just focuses on the straight upbeat side. I use this style forBluegrass and Country as well, but it is more 4-4 time, rather than 2-4.
Like the other rhythm demonstrations, it consists of a series of short clips, about a minute each, long enough to give a solid example each time, while giving me a chance to show a number of examples in a single video. I can’t cover everthing, but I give good real examples of several types of actual upbeat and driving rhythms I use for songs, and at the same time, they show the underlying techniques I use to create them. Like the guitar, or any instrument for that matter, the essential attributes of the instrument are often fairly simple, while the combinations and variations and what you can build with them is endless, and when it all comes together in a certain song, unique, even if you are just strumming three chords.