Lauren Bateman gives a short guitar tutorial demonstrating a percussive technique she calls the 'karate chop.' She explains using her pinky to hit the guitar body to produce a drum-like sound and demonstrates a rhythmic counting pattern ("1 and 2 and 3 and 4...") to apply the technique in songs.
So students ask me all the time, Lauren, how do I get percussive with my rhythm? And I usually use what's called the karate chop. I just basically slap my guitar, and it's really my pinky that's kind of whacking the body of the guitar. It's a drum. Okay. You can whack these things. You're not gonna break it. Okay. And usually a great pattern you can use is 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2.
Now you can just. Just doing this on the strings, and I'm kind of catching the body of the guitar with the knuckle. Do that, and you can make a lot of your songs come to life.
