A Style Map: Getting to Know More Genres
By now you've got the foundation to roam across all kinds of styles. This “style map” helps you recognize the hallmarks of each genre and find the next direction you want to dig into.
You're on lesson 6 / 12 in this stage
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- Choosing Your First Guitar8 min
- Changing Strings, Maintenance & a Gear Checklist9 min
- How to Practice So It Works: Planning, Warm-up & Plateaus9 min
- Follow Your Ears: Rhythmic Feel & Hearing Chords9 min
- Take a Song You Love From Zero to Done10 min
- A Style Map: Getting to Know More Genres9 min
- Playing & Singing in Front of People for the First Time: How Not to Panic8 min
- Record Your First Track on Your Phone8 min
- Livestreaming / Short Video & a Jamming Primer9 min
- Taking a Step Forward: Upgrades, Pickups & Tone9 min
- Reading Numbered Notation & Standard Notation9 min
- An Ear-Training Ladder: From Single Notes to Hearing Progressions8 min
The foundation you already have
Pop / folk playing-and-singing (strumming + fingerpicking + all-purpose progressions), blues (12-bar + shuffle), funk (16th-note muted grooves), rock (power chords), fingerstyle (the whole set in Stage 9) — you've already touched all of these. Below is the bigger map.
The “telltale signs” of a few genres
Pop / folk: open chords + 1–5–6–4, fingerpicked verses and strummed choruses. Rock: power chords + the “drive” of eighth-note muting. Blues: a I–IV–V twelve-bar + swung triplets. Country: the alternating bass of Travis picking. Reggae / ska: short, choppy stabs that land on the offbeats. Classical / fingerstyle: separate voices, with rest strokes bringing out the melody.
- 💡 Eighty percent of a style's “flavor” comes from its rhythm patterns and go-to chords, not from some fancy technique.
Want to add a new sound? The “signature techniques” of four styles
Ragtime: on top of the alternating bass, let the bass line walk more syncopated and “bouncy,” and fill the treble with lots of syncopation in the right hand, imitating the left and right hands of a ragtime piano.
Piedmont blues: a steady alternating bass with the thumb lays the foundation while the index / middle fingers play a syncopated melody up top — one player putting out two lines, “bass + lead.” It's the bedrock of fingerstyle blues.
Celtic: leans on open tunings like DADGAD (see Stage 9), and uses ornaments (quick hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides as ornaments) and a sustained drone to conjure an airy, flowing feel.
Flamenco elements: rasgueado (the fingers flick outward in quick succession in a fan, an unbroken roll) + golpe (tapping the top with a fingernail for percussion) + the Spanish color of the Phrygian mode.
- 💡 Try one signature move from each first to get the feel, then decide which to dig into; use copyrighted songs only as targets to aim for, and practice with public-domain / original material.
How to go from here
Pick the style you most love listening to, and go find the “simple and classic” songs in that style to figure out and to imitate its rhythm patterns and groove. The best way to dig into a style is always to play lots of songs in it that you genuinely love.
Go play these
Songs that fit this lesson's technique and chords — pick one and practice in the library:
Practice checklist
- Pick the style you most want to dig into and find a simple song in that style as a target.
- Name the most typical rhythm / chord features of that style.
- Pick one signature technique (alternating bass / rasgueado / DADGAD open strings) and try it for 5 minutes to feel its flavor.