(guitar strumming)
- Hello everyone.
Today we're talking about strumming patterns
and as guitar players,
most of us typically play with two hands.
And one of those hands,
is the one that we use for strumming.
So obviously, it's incredibly important
to spend a lot of our practice time, developing this hand.
So as guitar players progress,
sometimes they'll find themselves thinking less and less
about the strumming patterns that they're playing,
and they'll just be able to feel it and know what to play.
But of course, to get there,
there's a lot of work that you need to put in
and learning strumming patterns
that will challenge you and help you grow as a musician,
is a great way to get there.
And not only that,
some of these strumming patterns will help you play
really, most songs that you want to be able to play
and let's just get into it.
So let's start with the first strumming pattern.
The Jim and Jack,
it was named that by my great guitar teacher, Sammy Galley,
because it kind of sounds like you're saying
Jim and Jack and Jim and Jack,
as you're playing it, counting it out.
And it sounds like this.
(guitar strumming)
So let's break it down.
This strumming pattern alone has gotten me through like
80% of the songs I've tried to learn in my life.
The first thing you want to do is find a chord.
You know, you can use open chords,
but, there is some muting involved in this chord
or the strumming pattern that we're playing.
So, oftentimes it's even easier to mute the strings
when you're playing,
you know, let's say a bar chord
where you are covering all of the strings
and there are no open strings,
but it's not impossible with open strings either.
But let's get into the strumming pattern.
What you want to start by doing,
is playing down up,
(guitar strumming)
like that.
(guitar strumming)
See if you can get
(guitar strumming)
something like that going on,
(guitar strumming)
down, up,
(guitar strumming) down up,
you can notice it's all coming from the wrist.
(guitar strumming)
But here's where things get interesting.
(guitar strumming)
Let's see if we can mute the chord like that.
And this is a really essential skill for
any guitar player to develop.
Even if you're just trying to focus on your strumming,
muting can be a huge part of it.
And the muting usually comes
from your fretting hand actually, 'cause what I'm doing
(guitar strumming)
is releasing pressure from the frets
enough that the chord stops ringing out.
(guitar strumming)
I'm not taking my fingers all the way off of the neck
(guitar strumming)
'cause otherwise you'd get something like that.
That's not what we're looking for.
We just want to release enough pressure
(guitar strumming)
that the chord stops ringing out.
And once that happens,
(guitar strumming)
we can do another downstroke.
And we'll end up with this really cool
(guitar strumming)
muted strum because
(muted strumming)
we've muted the strings with our left hand.
(guitar strumming)
And then once you do that,
(guitar strumming)
you want to do an upstroke,
but with the chord being played,
(guitar strumming)
and once you're comfortable with that,
you try to put all of that together in a fluid way.
And the strumming pattern turns into this.
(guitar strumming)
- Down, up, (guitar strumming)
down up, mute up. (guitar strumming)
It's hard to talk and play at the same time,
but essentially it's down up, mute up, down up, mute up,
down up, mute up, Jim and Jack and Jim and Jack and-
(guitar strumming)
And once you get this down, (guitar strumming)
you can obviously speed it up (fast strumming)
But before you get to that, take it slow,
work on it one section at a time, just get the down up,
just get the muted strum,
take your time with it.
Now, we're gonna take this strumming pattern
that we already learned,
but we're gonna throw it into another time feel.
And this is a really cool concept
to understand as a musician,
because what we're playing in, is called straight feel,
where we have one and two and three and four
and one and two and three and four,
and you can hear everything is evenly spaced,
but now, we're gonna turn it into a swing feel
kind of, it's like a trot or a pendulum.
You can think of it a few different ways,
but the notes are no longer going to be evenly spaced.
It's gonna turn into something like this,
one and two and three and four
and one and two and three and four.
(mimicking cymbal)
Imagine you have, you know,
a jazz drummer on the ride cymbal
playing that classic swing feel for you.
And we're gonna now apply it to the
Jim and Jack strumming pattern.
And this is great for any situation where you're playing
in a swing feel as opposed to a straight feel.
And this is what it could sound like.
(guitar strumming)
So I'm just thinking the whole time,
dada, dada, dada, dada, dada,
like a horse trotting,
like a jazz drummer, whatever visualization you wanna use.
I think, it's awesome to be able to master
different time feels because guitar players
can definitely be groove players
if you spend time developing that skill.
And I actually think it's essential.
So, spend some time working on it.
So again, a swing feel is great
if you're ever playing a blues, let's say,
or any of the billions of songs that are written with a
blues sort of progression or feel, could sound like this.
(guitar strumming)
Excellent, but, going back to our straight feel,
Jim and Jack, Sultans of Swing is a great example
of a song in this feel, could sound like this
(Sultans of Swing chords strumming)
As you can hear, that's the feel that the original song
by the Dire Straits is in.
And, that's an example of a song that could be
perfect for working on this feel.
Now let's move on to a strumming pattern
and a feel that you'll hear in a lot of Latin music,
it's the soca or Soul Calypso feel.
And, it sounds like this.
(guitar strumming)
So you could be thinking in this feel,
one Calypso, one Calypso, one Calypso,
(guitar strumming)
and the way that we're gonna play this
is we're gonna start with a downstroke.
(guitar strumming)
And then two upstrokes
(guitar strumming) down, up, up, down, up, up,
down, up, up, down, up, up,
Sometimes you might even wanna turn that downstroke
into just the root note of the chord.
(guitar strumming)
And you can hear here,
there's a bit of muting going on where,
(guitar strumming)
every upstroke
I'm immediately removing pressure from the chord.
And then you end up with a really sort of suave
and clean strumming, sorta sound.
(guitar strumming)
But until you get there.
(open strumming)
That is still the right feel.
But I think you can probably hear, you know,
the difference between the two and how, you know,
when you mute, it does sound a lot more rhythmic
and it's a great thing to work towards.
Just slow it way down.
I spent a lot of time working on my left-hand muting
at a really slow tempo, you know,
just take your time with it,
just practice
(guitar strumming)
muting chords like this.
And then eventually it'll turn into this.
(guitar strumming)
And, you know, like I said,
a lot of Latin pop is in this feel.
Despacito is an example of a song that is definitely
in this feel.
Could sound a little something like this.
(Despacito chords strumming)
(chuckles)
So now, let's take what we were just working on
and put it in a different time feel.
Let's put it in a traditional ballad feel,
a waltz feel, it sounds a little something like this.
(guitar strumming)
So again, Calypso is dadada, dadada, dadada, dadada,
whereas a waltz feel is,
dadada, dadada, dadada, da,
They're similar, but again, which one would you, you know,
dance to in a Latin American style
and which one would you waltz to?
That will answer your question (chuckles)
as far as differentiating the two.
And again, you know, when you put this into practice
with a strumming pattern.
Our waltz feel three four times, six eight time,
all that kind of stuff.
Again, that downstroke could either be a full on downstroke,
or you could just be playing the root note of the chord.
(guitar strumming)
Either way, I'm imagining myself, you know,
sort of like going back and forth,
dadada, dadada, dadada, dadada, dadada, dadada,
like I'm ballroom dancing.
So some examples of songs that are in this feel would be
Love Me Tender by Elvis Presley or Perfect by Ed Sheeran,
which sounds like this.
(Perfect chords strumming)
You can hear that waltz feel going on.
And there are a lot of songs in this feel,
it's great to master,
and it helps you with your picking accuracy,
to see if you can isolate the root note,
if you want to play that way.
And it's a great one to know.
So let's take a look at our last strumming pattern today,
our last time feel,
this is perfect for anyone who wants to
form a one person band,
where you want to accompany yourself,
or if you like polka music,
this would also be appropriate for that.
But it sounds a little something like this.
(guitar strumming)
Or with all down strokes.
(guitar strumming)
Either way we'll accomplish a very similar thing.
It's great to know both,
but let's talk a little bit about
how to actually do that in the first place.
So again, let's find a chord,
let's start with E major let's say,
and what you want to do is
start with the lowest note of the chord.
(guitar strum)
You pick it,
(guitar strum)
and then you play an upstroke, you know,
playing the top notes of the chord,
(guitar strum)
and then you do a downstroke
(guitar strum)
on you know, the next available string
and then
(guitar strum) an upstroke.
(guitar strumming)
And you can hear that you're really aligning
the bass movement, the way a bass player might.
(guitar strumming)
And this can be especially fun when you really work on that,
you know, fretting hand muted,
could turn into something like this.
(guitar strumming)
And again, your options are to
play the way I just instructed you to
where you have down up, down up, down up, down up,
or you could even try all down strokes.
(guitar strumming)
Both have their merits, sometimes people find one of those
more comfortable than the other.
The only way to find out is to try both
and try your best to develop both, cause it's great to know.
So typically with this type of strumming approach,
you wanna be looking to outline the root and the fifth,
with your bass notes,
'cause that's typically what a bass player would do,
(guitar strumming)
where you can hear, here I'm playing root fifth,
root fifth and it just so happens that
that's the next available string.
So that works perfectly, but sometimes, you know,
let's say I'm playing G major the next available string,
(guitar strumming)
isn't actually the fifth in the chord, the sorry,
the root and the fifth of the chord.
I'm actually outlining the root and the third,
but I still think it sounds fine, right?
(guitar strumming)
So again, your two approaches are either
look for the root and the fifth,
but if you don't yet know what that means,
or it's inconvenient to the chord shape you're using,
just use the lowest string of the chord
and then the next available string.
And that'll probably sound great too.
So an example of a song that uses this feel would be
Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash, a classic
and you can hear, sounds a little something like this.
(Folsom Prison Blues chord strumming)
There you go.
Little polka, one man person band action.
And again, this is a great
and challenging strumming pattern to work on.
So, today we looked at some of the most
essential strumming patterns to get you through
lots of songs.
And they're also challenging in their own right.
As you know, practice that you can use
to develop as a guitar player.
And we talked about the Jim and Jack,
(guitar strumming)
or the Jim and Jack with a swing feel,
(guitar strumming)
We talked about the soca, Soul Calypso feel.
(guitar strumming)
We talked about a waltz, three four or six eight feel.
(guitar strumming)
And then we talked about the two four polka,
one person band feel.
(guitar strumming)
So, I hope you enjoy working on these
and they keep you busy for a little while in your practice.
Please leave a comment down below,
of any songs you've heard these strumming patterns in.
I think it's so cool to connect what you're learning
to the music that you're hearing.
I think that's always a fun
and inspiring thing to do as a musician.
And I hope you have a wonderful day.
Thanks for tuning in, bye.