Be sure to watch your timing and keep all the eighth notes evenly spaced. Another thing to work on with your strumming is dynamic control.
As guitar players, when we play quietly, we tend to drag a bit, and then we start to rush when we get louder. This will be a good time to start working on your dynamic control. Strumming Tip: Remember not to lock your wrist and strum just from just your elbow. You need to relax, use some wrist motion, and even pretend that you have something stuck on your finger that you need to shake off.
You can work on this pattern while using a metronome or a jam track if you like. A muted strum gives you a more percussive sound, almost like a drummer is playing with you. Below are some examples of simplified strum patterns of songs that I have used for beginner students. You can strip a strum rhythm down to its simplest form and build on it as you go. You will just be able to pick it up! The symbols below the chords and above the slashes are the direction of the strum.
Triplets are known as polyrhythms because you are playing a pattern of 3 against a count of 4 — two rhythms are happening simultaneously.
A triplet strum rhythm using 8 th notes the most common application of triplets looks like this:. You can see here that the quarter notes the first beat of each triplet set alternate between up- and downstrokes. To play this rhythm, you will put the accent on every third strum to maintain the pulse.
Having a rhythm written out this way is generally more difficult and confusing to read. Instead, the beginning of a piece of music will have a note at the very top to indicate a shuffle feel:. This way, the rhythm can be written out using the easier-to-read 8 th notes and the player will remember that a shuffle feel is being applied to all 8 th note strums. For a great example of what a shuffle sounds like, one need look no further than the blues.
The next step is to improve your rhythms with dynamics. Think about the way you speak. Your voice goes up and down, it gets louder and softer, you use inflection on certain words or phrases. The way you strum should be no different. The manipulation of dynamics will give life to your strumming and is absolutely essential to grooving.
You need to be aware of several different things that are going on with the strumming hand. Sometimes, it will more appropriate to strum just a couple strings or even just striking the lowest note of a particular chord. With the G chord, you might pick only the 6 th string to start out, then follow with a final strum on the highest three strings on beat 4.
Now, you are starting to add some inflection to the chords that mimic that of a drum set. Sometimes, a full on strum hitting as many strings as possible is warranted!
Split strumming affects volume to a degree, but so does the weight of your strum. You can hit two strings really hard and it still be louder than a softly brushed chord using all of the strings. Experiment with different velocities of your pick. You may also need to make adjustments to the angle of your pick. Listen to the difference between a pick angled upwards while you strum down versus a more perpendicular pick.
Maybe it would sound better if on an up-strum, you slightly pointed the pick towards the floor. Try adjusting your thumb position of the pick hand to angle the pick sideways or flatten it out. How much of the pick you use also plays a part in volume control. See what would happen if you choked up on the pick and used the very, very tip only and compare how that feels and sounds with more of the pick exposed.
How you grip the pick is also a huge factor in how hard you will be on the strings. Grip that pick with all of your might and it will be quite hard for you to play softly.
Muting is also a great technique to implement. You can mute with your strumming hand resting way back on the saddle of the bridge to dampen the strings as you play.
Muting with the fretting hand is good, too. You can completely mute a chord to cut it short, or to add a couple of muted strums for a straight-up percussive effect.
While playing in four-four tempo, you will be able to play with four quarters, one quarter and six eighths, two quarters and four eights, and so on.
Furthermore, you can try muting the strings yourself to see what interesting pattern you can create. The second bit is downstroke but with muted strings or with a percussive slight slap, followed by an upstroke. Finally, we have another slap on the strings. While this might sound confusing, once you hear the song it will become much easier and clearer for you.
Thinking Out Loud is a great way to improve additional, a bit more advanced, the technique for playing acoustic guitar. This song has a simple down, up. Down pattern. However, On the 2nd and the 4th downbeat, you need to downstroke and mute the strings slight slap. Of course, you could play the song using only upstrokes and downstrokes and it will still sound amazing. However, I recommend using muted notes to add that unique rhythm to the song.
This strumming pattern is used for the chorus, and the intro is a bit different, but if you master this one, you will have no problems figuring out the first part of the song. This strumming pattern uses down and upstrokes on the first beat. On the 2nd, 3rd, 4th downbeat you mute the strings and on the upbeat you strum up. As you progress in your guitar learning, you will notice how fun the strings muting techniques are, so you will keep adding them yourself even in the songs that are played without them.
This way, we will play the only downstroke on the first beat, and all the rest of the beats will be muted. On the other hand, we will play all the upbeats normally, to create the well-known vibe of the song.
Playing rhythm guitar requires a lot of strumming. With enough practice, you will eventually stop paying attention to them and just play any song. Furthermore, even though we mentioned songs that are played using popular strumming patterns, you can still try to add variations and experiments.
By experimenting with patterns and techniques, you will create something that is unique and beautiful. Besides, these are great for beginners and learning and practicing, but you should never fear to play something differently if you believe that it sounds better. Each of these patterns can be played on both acoustic and electric guitar, so you will be able to practice regardless of the type of instrument. You will need to spend a lot of time trying them out, and eventually, you will be able to play any of the patterns we mentioned with ease.
If you found this article useful you may want to save this pin below to your Guitar board. I have been playing guitar since As long as I can remember I always had a huge passion for rock music and I extremely enjoy playing it. Thanks so much!!! Hi Joey, ahh, singing! You might need to think about strumming a little lighter, or singing louder. I recommend taking a voice lesson or two. It will really help you familiarize yourself with your voice and get some more confidence.
I can play a note to every syllable of my song on the piano or the uke, but when it comes to chords, I am completely clueless. Please help, thanks so much for this brilliant website! Hi Joey, these are great questions. When I write, I like to find a simple chord progression and strum that over and over as I sing lyrics or a melody over the chords. Finding the right chord progression requires a little bit of theory to know what chords work and sound natural with one another.
Here are some popular chord progressions in different keys. You can randomize the chords in the progression:. I strive to learn so I can play better and do try to immerse myself. Love your stuff, glad I found ya, thanks for all the effort you put forth.
Glad to hear you are so eager to learn! I just wanna say that I have just started playing the Ukulele and I found your website and it just basically answered all the questions swirling around in my head.
I mean I read one article you wrote and at the bottom there was a link to the next question on my mind! This is a great site and must for beginners! Ive had my uke for a while and got the strumming down pretty well but i can get the songs to sound like they are suppost to… I dont know how to get the chord to go with the strums and make it sound good.
Any tips? After starting, and I must admit, dipping in and out if different parts of your course, I find I can now play music!! It feels great. Thanks for keeping the beginner bits simple. More simple 12 bar blues strumming please! This article nails one of my biggest struggles on the head! Why is there no sheet music for use songs — only child charts!
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