hey how you doing justin here hope
you're doing great today we're going to
talk about up strums it's something that
i get asked about by a lot of beginners
they're nowhere near as difficult as
people think in fact they're just as
easy as doing a down strum but because
probably in the journey thus far you've
mostly been doing down strums the first
time you try and do an upstroke might
feel just a bit peculiar because you
haven't done it before but don't be
scared by the end of this lesson you're
going to feel a lot more confident about
the idea of making an up strum as well
now i want to emphasize here the
importance of having a thin
pick okay i'm using this jim dunlop
nylon it's a .38 millimeters it's it's
like a piece of paper or cardboard you
could probably get away with using a
piece of cardboard if you shaped it like
a pick or just get yourself a really
thin pick um
it really makes a difference uh in the
week three of my left-handed study i
only had a thick pick i didn't have a
thin pick and it really made strumming
very very difficult i really didn't
enjoy it at all so make sure you found
yourself
a thin pick before you get going with
using your upstrokes it makes a big
difference
so the first thing to realize when we're
going to get into upstrokes is that they
come in between down strokes sounds
pretty obvious right so the down strums
are one
two
three
four and then we've got one and two and
three and four and now if you're doing
four down strums before you were already
doing up strokes in between you just
weren't strumming the strings okay so
first thing to realize just use your
fingers to mute all of the strings so
you're not even going to make a sound if
you do touch the strings but we're going
to start by not touching the strings
even so just using your hand getting
used to the feeling of one and two and
three
and four and down up down up down up
down up one and two
and three and four and down up down up
down up down up you wanna practice doing
that if you think that that might be a
struggle pause this video now and just
have a little bit of a run through
and make sure that you can get that
feeling where your hand is moving quite
relaxed
up and down or down and up
now we're going to move it on to playing
the guitar and the first thing i want
you to do is i want you to try and strum
all of the strings each time
okay so just going one and two
and three and four and one and two
and three and four
and
one and two
and three and four and count along with
it as you're doing it's a really good
idea might feel a little bit silly in
the early stages but just one and two
and three
and four and getting used to the count
getting used to the movement solidifying
in your body and in your mind
one and two and three and four and this
relationship between the one two three
and the four and the down motion and the
and and the up motion
something that you really want to build
a strong relationship with particularly
you should be tapping your foot as well
i wasn't tapping my foot then you should
be tapping your foot with the one two
three and the four as well okay all of
those things combined gonna make a big
difference now
the reality of it is when you're doing
an up strum
it's usually just the thinnest three or
four strings the down strum will lead
you kind of in toward the body of the
guitar and the up strum moves slightly
away it's very rare that you strum all
of the strings with an up strum you can
choose to do it so i will sometimes
choose to strum all of the strings but
it's a kind of general principle for
beginners you want to think that an
upstroke
is just going to be the thinnest few
strings the thinnest three or four
strings not all of them
so be aware of that now i want you to
try the same thing again and just go
down up but with the upstroke you're
kind of coming slightly away from the
guitar okay if i try and line it up so
down in and then up you're kind of
coming away a little bit not not like
out right we're not going silly just
a little bit away one and two
and three
and four and
one and
two
and three
and four and so we're not really
on on the upstroke i'm definitely not
hitting the thickest two strings at all
they're not getting touched at the
moment
now at this speed when it's very very
slow and i'm kind of concentrating
it might feel not quite natural but i
can promise you that's what's going to
happen when you two and three and four
and one two and three and four and i
think understanding that the up strum is
usually only going to strum the thinnest
few strings can be a really helpful
thing it's a whole heap of worry that
you don't have to have that i'm not
strumming all of the strings okay
particularly the thicker strings for a
lot of the chords we're playing we don't
want to strum the thicker strings anyway
for a d minor chord or an a minor chord
we don't want to play the thickest
string any anyway so if you're doing an
up strung to be able to kind of strum up
and then get away on the fifth string
say for an a minor chord just strum
up
and then not the thickest string i mean
who can do that i can't do that that
would be like really really impossible
so that's part of the reason why just
strumming on the thinnest strings works
really well the other thing is actually
it sounds better so when you strum all
of the strings
[Music]
it doesn't quite have the same swing as
[Applause]
is all again
is just the ups
sorry just the thinnest strings on the
up
[Music]
it just it sounds better when the up
strum is just focused on the thinnest
few strings so make sure you bear that
in mind while we check out the following
strumming patterns that incorporate the
upstream