[josh821]

What's the best way you've found to get used to doing this?

Personally, I've only really ever had to play over things in 3 or 4 but I was experimenting with polyrhythms and I'm having a real tough time adjusting to playing over something that's in 7. Everything sounds fine until the chord abruptly changes and I realize I hadn't worked far enough towards the next chord yet to make a smooth transition.

[distressed_romeo]

A few ideas...

1) Experiment with different ways of subdividing the beat. If you're in, say, 15/16, it's impossible to mark time by counting to 15 in each bar, as your brain won't be able to keep that going whilst still coordinating your hands. It's more likely that the rhythm would be counted...

123412341234123

With every new odd-metre, experiment with different ways of placing the down-beats, as breaking them up into smaller parts like this is really the secret behind feeling and counting them. You can do this away from your guitar, by just tapping on a table-top, as if you get it sorted mentally first, transfering it onto the guitar will be much easier. Do this when you practice your rhythm playing as well...get a groove going (even just on one chord) and experiment with the placement of the downbeats in an odd-metre rhythm. You can do this with everything from death-metal riffs, to funk strumming, two-handed grooves and fingerstyle rasguedos. It's a great way of coming up with new ideas.

2) ALWAYS tap your foot when you play. If you don't already you should really make this a habit. If you can't tap your foot in time with the music, you haven't internalised the downbeat solidly enough.

3) Set up a drum loop of the rhythm you want to play over, and leave it on while you do something else away from the guitar. It's wierd, but your brain will start to absorb it by osmosis.

If you do all that, and internalise these new rhythms so they're just as natural to you as a 4/4 or 3/4 beat, you won't have a problem improvising over them.

Hope that helps!