Here in lesson II of Happy Traum's Easy Steps to Acoustic Blues Guitar (@1:32min) Happy clues us immediately that this guitar lesson continuation will begin to require more work than disc one. Because we'll try to do two or more things at once with the different fingers of your strumming/picking/plucking/palm muting hand.
Happy humbly tells us this steady rhythm or thumb is a difficult thing to learn. He shows us an exercise or two and that we should go off where ever it is we need to go and get these skills down and then come back!
But he doesn't really mean it and still tries to give us a fighting chance and our moneys worth. I have seen this kind of thing before only Happy really does try teaching us and we have to start somewhere.
The whole nebulous area of this steady beat, tap your foot, keep the time is glossed over by guitar teachers maybe because its in the area of learning the drums. Its like your parents taking you on a trip to a foreign country but you cant speak the language. Keeping time is the language of music that's neutral that you can share with other musicians all over the world perhaps.
I recommend everybody take a few ten or twenty drum lessons just to prove to themselves they can play a few beats. You start with one hand, then both hands, then add a foot and the then later the other foot too so you can play 1/4 notes with your right foot on the bass drum, 16th notes on the high hat, eight notes on the snare and accent with the ride cymbal. You get up to what they call the mother of all drum beats and wish you had done this years earlier. I started with a learn drum for kids lesson. I recommend it and all you need is a pair of drum sticks and a step ladder although I bought a 125 fake electronic drum practice kit. I did up the grade the chair to throne and the high hat stand to a Tama Iron Cobra. Now its time for me to move on to a real set of drums.
I would rather die of passion than of boredom. – Vincent van Gogh