Hey, how you doing? Justin here,
back with you for a look at our very first strumming pattern,
that involves an up strum.
And we're gonna put an up strum after beat 2.
So, first of all, fingers wrapped around, so we've got a fully muted guitar neck.
We're gonna practice.
1...2 and 3...4.
So we're gonna strum, down...down, up, down...down.
1...2 and 3...4.
If you ever saw that pattern written out, it would literally be,
down, down, up, down, down, or D, D, U, D, D.
Okay? You could also see it written down as 1, 2 and 3, 4,
and you know you're gonna play an up strum on the 'and', right?
So, it's gonna be, 1 will be a down, 2 will be a down,
the plus, the 'and' will be an up, and the following 3 and 4 will be down strums.
First thing to do, is just practice it real slow.
So just going through, 1...2 and 3...4.
Remembering that the up strum...
isn't gonna strum all of the strings.
1...2 and 3...4.
Trying to keep the movement, really nice and smooth.
So it's kind of like a pendulum.
Kind of like a pendulum.
1...2 and 3...4. 1...2 and 3...4.
And you wanna practice this a lot.
Just doing exactly this motion, counting along...
1...2 and 3...4. 1...2 and 3...4.
1...2 and 3...4.
If strumming's something that you struggle with,
definitely add some extra time
practicing this into your practice routine. Okay?
You should know after the first couple of days of practice,
whether it's feeling kind of okay.
For most people, it will feel not easy,
but you'll know that if you can do it kind of in time,
and you've got that pendulum feeling with your forearm,
and it's moving nice and evenly, you're probably on the right track.
Okay? Don't worry about metronomes, or any of that stuff yet.
Just play it, keeping it nice and simple.
3...4. 1...2 and 3...4.
1...2 and 3...4, 1...2 and 3...4.
Do remember to be forgiving of yourself,
if you're finding this a little difficult.
For most people, strumming is the hardest part of learning guitar.
Okay?
Finger pain, yes. Chord changes, yes.
Strumming, everybody has a bit of fun with strumming,
trying to get strumming in time, not stopping and all that stuff.
With strumming, it needs to be continuous,
and you need to be able to keep strumming, even if the chords go wrong.
So, strumming really wants to become an automated part of the guitar journey,
and the best way of developing that, is repetition.
Repetition, and a little bit more repetition,
then repetition while you're try and distract yourself.
So, learning to go, 2 and 3, 4,
and then being able to talk about other stuff,
while the pattern keeps going, is also really important.
Now, if you're a real beginner, that's gonna be quite a difficult thing.
But just training up, so you've still got this, 2 and 3, 4.
1, 2 and 3, 4, and it's gonna keep going.
Now, I was kinda expecting myself to muck that up,
seeing as I was trying to demonstrate it,
but actually, it seems to become pretty well, so far.
1, 2 and 3, 4. I think I've managed to keep it going pretty consistently.
We'll see if I can't...
I'm trying to think about what's going on, on the computer screen.
I don't think it's gone wrong yet. That's...you get the idea.
You trying to do it over and over and over again,
so it becomes this automated sequence, that your brain goes,
"Oh we're doing that strumming pattern", it sends out the signal for doing that,
cos if you're thinking about your chord changes,
and maybe singing at the same time, while you're playing,
this rhythm part wants to become as automated as you can.
So, repetition is the key thing here.
I'll give you one more pattern to have a look at today,
and that is adding an up strum after beat 3, as well.
So, 2 up strums in the bar.
So, we'll have, 1, 2 and 3 and 4.
1, 2 and 3 and 4.
I don't want you to worry too much about tempo.
You might find at this stage, you're going...
1, 2 and 3 and 4, or even slower...
but, most people find that really slow is actually really hard, as well.
So you're looking for that kind of, probably around this tempo.
1, 2 and 3 and 4. If you wanna go faster...
2, and 3 and 4. 1, 2 and 3 and 4...you can.
The key thing here,
the important thing to get, once you're comfortable with the mechanics,
is that relaxed feeling of the arm. That's really the biggest deal.
When it comes to strumming, the arm wants to feel relaxed.
Really, really relaxed.
1, 2 and 3 and 4. 1, 2 and 3 and 4.
It's like the down strums are just using gravity to drop it down,
then I'm lifting it up, and then gravity pulls it back down again.
It really wants to feel that loose.
2 and 3 and 4. 1, 2 and 3 and 4.
When you're practicing this during the week,
you'll find that you spend most of the time
just on the very first pattern.
So, just using that one upstroke after beat 2.
This second pattern that I've just shown you,
down, down, up, down, up, down, down, down, up, down, up, down,
is a precursor to the most common strumming pattern of all time,
which we're gonna be checking out next week.
The more practice you can do on that pattern,
this one: down, down, up, down, up, down,
down, down, up, down, up, down.
The more practice you do on that, the easier it's gonna be next lesson
to get into this fantastic strumming pattern. I call it 'Old Faithful',
It is the most commonly used strumming pattern of all time.
It's definitely, worth a look at.
When you're practicing through the week,
start with the simpler one, with just the one upstroke.
If you're feeling confident after a minute or couple of minutes practice,
then see if you can go through and start working on this second pattern.
When it comes time to doing your songs,
the chords that we looked at this week, are fairly easy,
and there's some great songs that just use those chords,
along with chords that we've done before.
The chord changes aren't that difficult, so a really good thing is
to try and incorporate some of these strumming patterns.
Just looking at that first one going, 1, 2 and 3 and 4.
1, 2 and 3 and 4.
Maybe mix it in to, you know, you might have A minor.
♪
E minor.
♪
A minor, again.
That might be the whole song. There's a few songs that just use
A minor and E minor, that run like that for the whole tune.
The thing about if you're not practicing with my Beginner Song Course app,
is that you need to make sure that you stay in time.
What you don't wanna do, is to go like,
1, 2 and 3 and 4, and then change chords,
1, 2 and 3 and 4, and then stop, and then change chords.
You've got to keep the rhythm going. The rhythm has to say,
1, 2 and 3 and 4.
So, 1, 2 and 3 and 4, change, 1, 2 and 3 and 4, change.
Even if the chord goes wrong...
2 and 3 and 4 and 1, 2 and 3 and 4, it's okay.
You've got to try and keep the strumming going,
which is why I think that Beginner Song Course app is so great
for people learning their rhythm,
which is, for most people, the hardest part.
So if we can nip that, and get your rhythm sounding strong,
you'll be a much better guitar player sooner.