Hey there fellow guitar people, for those of you who are new, I’m Tomas Michaud from
Real Guitar Success.
Today, I’ve got an easy warm up flamenco guitar strum pattern for you.
Now this is probably the strum I’ve done more than any other strum in my guitar playing
career.
In fact, of my half a dozen of my CDs I’ve recorded I bet you about 80% of the songs
used some variations of this basic strum pattern.
When I first heard the Gypsy Kings do this strumming pattern I thought it was like the
most complex strum I could ever learn but you’re not gonna have that problem.
I’m gonna break it down step by step and if you follow my steps you’ll be strumming
like the Gypsing Kings in no time.
Let’s do this.
Let me show you the pattern, nice and slow . It looks like this (strumming) a little
faster.
I know it looks like a lot at first but were gonna break it down.
Don't worry.
Let’s start off with the basic motion . You can see that mostly what’s going on is a
lot of down, up, down, up so you wanna get that motion and add a couple of little techniques
to that basic down up motion.
We’re gonna go down, up, down, up.
I’m just muting my strings on my left hand so no chord for now.
When I go down, I’m using the outside of my nails on my fingers and when I go up I’m
using the nail on my thumb.
Now that creates a little crisper sound.
If I don't use the nail, it becomes muffled so let’s try that together nice and slow
- ready, down, up, down, up, again, down, up, down, up.
Now you’ll notice I’m twisting my hand a little bit and at the same time moving my
elbow.
It's not a big motion . It’s a little motion both twisting and up and down.
Try it again.
Ready, go - down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up.
Now I did create an entire lesson on just using the nails for strumming and I’ll put
a link to that up in a corner.
Okay, now we're gonna add our first technique to this down up motion and I’m gonna call
it a MUTE.
The way we do it is when the hand is down we're going to come up with the thumb like
normal but we're gonna open the hands as we do that and mute the string.
It looks like this - kinda flick motion.
When you do it slower, it's actually harder but fast - it's kinda like twisting and opening
your hand at the same time so try that with me.
Let your hand kind of hang down just below the strings your thumb and it's going to come
up and rake the strings kind of quick give it a little flick and as you do open your
hand and mute the strings.
Again, go.
Ready, go hhhmm not so bad.
One more time, go.
Now let's try that with the basic down up motion.
We're going to go down, up, down and then the mute.
Ready, here we go.
Ready, hit it.
Down, up, down.
Now that flick, mute.
Again down, up, down and flick.
I like flick better than mute.
It describes emotion better.
Now we're going to take those basic techniques and put them into the rumba pattern.
Now don't underestimate the value of practicing that little bit that we did so far.
In fact that little bit is actually most of the pattern.
Once you get that little bit the rest of the pattern really is easy so I encourage you
to practice that down, up and mute a little bit before trying to put it into the pattern.
That said, that first part actually covers the first half of the pattern.
I'm going to review that first part.
It's down, up, down and then flick.
Try it with me one more time.
Go.
Down, up, down, flick.
Now we're going to add the second part of the pattern before we add a chord with the
left hand.
We've got down, up, down, flick.
Now you come up again but with the inside of your finger.
You brush up like that.
Try that much with me.
Ready, go.
Down, up, down, flick and now brush with the inside of your finger.
When I say brush not slowly but kinda give it a nudge.
Let's do it again.
Ready, hit it.
Down, up, down, flick and brush up.
We're almost there.
I'm going to add on.
Let me show you first what we're going to add on.
As you come up now you do another down, up.
I'll show you what it looks like putting it all together.
Down, up, down, flick, brush up, down, up.
Do that much with me.
Ready, go.
Down, up, down.
We'll do the flick now.
Flick.
Brush up.
Down with your fingers like the beginning and then up with your thumb.
Again, ready hit it.
Down, up, down, flick, brush up, down up.
Let me show you what it sounds like with a chord (strumming) that was the entire pattern.
Let's try the pattern with an A minor chord.
Make an A minor in your left hand and we're going to do it together.
Get ready, go.
Down, up, down.
Here's the flick.
Now brush up with your finger and down up - that was one whole pattern.
Again, go.
Down, up, down, flick, brush up.
Now I want to add one more detail.
There's a little pause in there.
Listen.
Down, up, down, flick.
Pause.
Brush up, down up.
That actually completes the pattern.
Try that with me.
I'll call it out.
Ready, go.
Down, up, down.
Here's the flick.
Flick.
Now you pause.
Up, down, up.
Again, ready go.
Down, up, down, flick.
Pause.
Up, down, up and again down, up, down, flick.
Pause.
Up.
One more time.
A little faster.
Ready, go.
Down, up, down, flick.
Pause.
Up, down, up, down, up, down, flick.
Pause.
Up, down, up.
Now that you've got the basic pattern, you need a way to practice it.
To do that, I'm going to show you a simple chord progression that's fairly easy.
The chords are easy to finger but it sounds good.
It is the same chord progression I played in the beginning of the video minus the rest
of the band.
So we're going to start off with an A minor then we're going to play a form of the G chord.
I'm just using two fingers.
You don't have to worry about that high E string.
Now this next chord is actually called an F major 7 and then finally an E chord.
Go ahead and try the chords with me and then we'll add the strum to it.
Start with your A minor just strum down just so you hear the notes.
Now go to that G, a nice easy G.
F major 7.
If this is new to you, you're going to put your first finger on the second string first
fret, second finger next to it on the third string second fret and then the third finger
is right there on the fourth string third fret.
So you're actually playing an open high E string and then the E. Again A minor, G, F
major 7 and then E. Okay we're going to play the whole progression once through two strums
on each chord.
We'll go nice and slow so follow along.
Here we go starting with an A minor chord.
Ready, hit it.
Down, up, down, flick, pause, down and do it again pause.
Now to the G, got it?
Down, up, down, flick, pause, up, down, up and one more time flick pause, yes.
And F major 7 and flick, pause, up, down, up, down, flick, pause, down.
And the E chord, here we go.
Down, flick, pause, up, down and let's do it again.
Okay so if that's where you're at practice it just like that and for those who are ready
I'm gonna go a little faster.
Here we go, ready hit it.
So here's a little demonstration of what it sounds like with the backing tracks.
I'm playing four full strums for each of the chords starting with A minor.
Here it goes 1 2 ready, hit it.
Well that was fun.
As you probably guessed, the key to getting this is having a way to practice it starting
slow and then picking up your speed little by little.
A fun way to practice is with a backing track and I've got a surprise for you.
I'm going to give you a free backing track that you can practice along with and I'll
also give you that basic chord progression so you can see what it looks like.
If you're on YouTube I'll put a link in the description below and if you're on my blog
you'll find it below this video.
Hey before you leave, go ahead and give me a thumbs up and if you're on YouTube subscribe
so I can make sure you don't miss a thing and check out this next video.
I think you'll find it really helpful.
I'm going to put a link to it right up here.