[MUSIC PLAYING]
This video discusses strumming, which I think
is half the reason people play guitar, because it's really
fun to just sit there and strum and play open chords.
It just feels good.
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
Whatever you're going to play.
So here's the key to strumming.
Your hand should not stop moving.
So if it feels awkward when you're strumming,
that means that there's something going wrong.
It should be really smooth.
Basically, you should be able to just go down, up, down, up easily.
And I'm going to play it without any chords.
So it should be just--
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
You notice how my right hand is just really easy.
It's relaxed.
I'm using gravity to go down.
I know that sounds horrible.
So let's put some chords with it.
And I'm just going to play quarter notes because that's where you start,
quarter notes.
I'm just going to play 1, 4, 5.
So G C and D. And I'm just going to play quarter notes.
And I'm going to play it four times in a row.
Ready?
1, 2, 3, 4.
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
Now if that's too fast and you're thinking, this is ridiculous.
I can't do this, this is what you're going to do.
You're going to leave the fourth beat off.
So you're going to use the fourth beat to switch to the next chords.
It's going to sound like this.
1, 2, 3, switch.
2, 3, switch.
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
Switch.
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
Switch.
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
Switch.
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
And so on and so forth.
It's more important that you keep a steady beat in 4, 4 time
than it is for you to play on every beat.
So as long as you keep the beat it's OK if you only strum
three quarter notes instead of four.
Strumming pattern number two involves quarter notes and eighth notes.
So we're going to be playing a quarter note, two eights, and two quarters.
So it's going to sound like this.
1 and 2 and 3, 4.
You'll notice I went down.
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
Down, up, down, down.
So you always want to keep a steady down up movement with this arm.
Even if you just have a practice like this and don't play,
just get used to your arm going like that.
Because it shouldn't be like--
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
So we're going to play the second pattern now, slowly, using 1, 4, 5.
OK, so it's going to be the same thing.
G, C, and D. All right, 1, 2, 3, and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3, 4.
1, 2 and 3, 4.
1, 2, and 3, 4.
1, 2 and 3, 4.
You'll notice that I'm muting the strings at the end.
And I'm using this part of my hand to mute the strings.
And you don't have to use that--
you don't have to slam it down on the strings because it's just a--
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
It'll mute it out pretty easily.
So don't slam your hand down.
Make sure that you stay really relaxed in your strumming hand.
We're going to play strumming pattern number three now,
which is a variation on strumming pattern number two.
It sounds like this.
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
1 and 2 and 3, 4.
So I'm going to play that now using 1, 4, 5.
Here we go.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and--
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
The final strumming pattern is a pretty common one.
It's going to sound like this.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
So you'll notice it goes down, down, up, up, down.
But don't forget you have to go down to come up, and vise versa.
So make sure this is still happening.
OK.
So you're going to go down, down, up, up, down.
And if you're counting that, which you should be, out loud preferably--
1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
And 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
So now we're going to play that with 1, 4, 5.
Here we go.
1, 2, 3, 4.
1, 2 and 3 and 4.
Again.
1, 2, and 3 and 4.
1, 2 and 3 and 4.
So you can play through these strumming patterns with open chords or bar
chords.
Either way is fine.
We were focused in this video on 1, 4, 5.
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
You also have 1, 5, 4.
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
Or--
[GUITAR STRUMMING]
You also have 1, 6, 4, 5.
1, 5, 6, 4.
So use the different chord progressions that you find in this video
and practice all the strumming patterns with them.
Be sure to use a metronome, and be sure to count out loud.
And you'll have it in no time.
You can start a band.