(strumming guitar)
- Hey, I'm Nate Savage from Guitareo,
and I wanna talk to you a little bit about strumming today.
Strumming is one of those techniques on the guitar
that's so critical and fundamental
that it's worth putting in
some extra time to get it to a high level.
In fact, it's so important
that I'm including it
as one of the techniques I'm talking about
in the new course that I've been working on,
that proves how putting in concerted,
focused, practice time
to develop critical fundamentals
and really good technique with those fundamentals,
can get you better, way faster, on the guitar.
But for this video today, what we're gonna talk about,
is the single, most important strumming pattern
to develop your strumming technique.
And you may be saying to yourself,
Nate, how can you say that?
There is no one, single, most important strumming pattern.
Well, that may be true
but the strumming pattern that I'm gonna show you
is so chock-full of strumming techniques
that when you get it down and you can play it,
your strumming's gonna come up to a higher level
and you're gonna have a lot easier time
figuring out strumming patterns in your favorite songs,
and coming up with your own strumming patterns.
So let's jump into the strumming pattern.
I'm gonna break it down into five easy steps.
That way, no matter what level you're at,
you can jump in whenever you feel comfortable.
Now the first part of this strumming pattern,
to get started, all you're gonna do,
is work on your down strokes on quarter notes.
So one,
two,
three,
four,
one,
two,
three,
four,
and I'm not making any chords right now
just so we can concentrate on our strumming.
But when you're working on down strokes,
you're gonna be really focusing on your technique.
And the number one thing that I see guitar players do,
or newer guitar players,
when they're working on down strokes,
is lock their wrist and just strum from the elbow.
And that can really hurt you.
It can make it difficult to get through the strings.
It can make it difficult
to keep up with the tempo of the song.
So what you do is just loosen up
and strum from your wrist and your elbow,
and get kind of a rotation in there.
Pretend like you're trying to flick something
off of your hand.
And that's a really good foundational technique
for down strokes.
And you can go a long way
with just down strokes in your strumming,
if your technique is really good,
they can sound really good
and they're really usable in a lot of different situations.
So that's step number one,
one,
two,
three,
four.
Just remember, stay relaxed, don't lock your wrist,
and use that rotational kind of movement.
And only dig in as much of the pick as you need to
in the strings to make it sound.
And I was playing a G7
(strumming guitar)
in that little playing at the beginning.
(strumming guitar)
So you can put that on it like...
(strumming guitar)
So that's step number one.
If you're new to strumming, get that down,
spend some, focus on this.
Step number two is the opposite of downstrokes,
and it's upstrokes.
A lot of newer players have trouble with upstrokes
because they tend to focus on just downstrokes
and neglect their upstrokes.
The two tips I have for you for your upstrokes,
same thing, just on one
two,
three,
four.
Tip number one is that
you don't have to hit all six strings on your upstrokes.
Oftentimes I'll only hit the top three to five strings
on my upstrokes,
so don't feel like you have to hit all six strings
when you're playing upstrokes.
Also, the second thing for your upstrokes is
don't dig too much of your pick into the strings,
or it can get caught in the strings,
and it can feel like it's really tough
to get through the strings.
Only use as much of the pick as you need,
just the tip of it,
to get through the strings and make it sound good.
So those two things: only the top few strings maybe,
and then just enough of the pick to get it through.
So work on that technique, and really develop that.
It's gonna make it a lot easier
to learn more complex strumming patterns.
So one,
two,
three,
four.
So then one,
two,
three,
four.
And actually look back at your hand,
and think about all those tips.
Think about the ones for the downstrokes.
Think about the ones for the upstrokes too.
Taking time to develop your technique on this level
will really help you
be able to play a lot more complex strumming patterns
in the future.
So work on your downstrokes and your upstrokes
by themselves, and then you can put them together.
That's step number three.
So instead of just all downs or all ups,
you're gonna alternate downs and ups on eighth-notes,
so you have one-and, two-and, three-and, four-and.
And it may be a little bit difficult to think about the tips
for the ups and the downs at the same time,
but slow it way down
(strums guitar)
and think about everything
all the tips that we've gone over so far.
So keep that rotational movement in there.
On your upstrokes,
don't feel like you have to dig in to all six strings,
maybe only the top three to five strings, stay relaxed,
really look back at your strumming hand,
and also one tip I have here for you is
a lot of players find it difficult
to kind of hold onto the pick as they're strumming,
especially with upstrokes.
They find that it kind of flies out of their hands.
So what you can do is
just kind of constantly adjust that pick in your fingers
to keep it where you want it,
or you can use two fingers to kind of hold onto that pick.
I do that a lot if I'm doing some faster strumming,
but that's step number three:
putting your downs and ups together.
one-and,
two-and,
three-and,
four-and.
Only dig enough of the pick into the strings
to make the sound you want.
I'm gonna put that G7 on here.
(strumming guitar)
Stay relaxed.
Do that rotational movement in there.
That's step number three,
so take some time throughout the next week or two,
or however long it takes,
and develop alternating
down-up,
one-and,
two-and,
three-and,
four-and.
Step number four incorporates something
that's really critical for developing your strumming,
and it's called the constant strumming technique,
and believe it or not,
we've already been incorporating this
on the first two steps.
Check it out.
When you're going through step number one,
doing all downstrokes,
you kept your hand going,
down-up,
even though you weren't digging into the strings
on your upstrokes.
So you kept your constant strumming technique going,
one-and,
two-and,
three-and,
four-and.
But you didn't dig into the strings for those upstrokes,
and that is what the constant strumming technique is.
So for step four, we're gonna learn what I would consider
a real-life constant strumming technique pattern,
and the pattern is
one-and,
two-and,
so just two downstrokes on beats one and two,
and then for beats three and four you're gonna have
down-up,
down-up.
So one-and,
two-and,
three-and-four-and.
So two quarter-notes, and then four eighth-notes.
Let me do it again.
One-and,
two-and,
three-and-four-and,
one-and,
two-and,
three-and-four-and.
So that is your mission.
You need to get that strumming pattern down,
and we're almost there.
We only have one step after this,
so one-and,
two-and,
three-and-four-and.
And remember,
all of the technique tips we're gone over so far,
as far as the downstrokes and the upstrokes,
staying relaxed,
one-and,
two,
three-and-four-and,
one,
two,
three-and-four-and,
one,
two,
three-and-four-and.
Let me put some chords on.
I'm gonna throw that G7 chord on here
and let you hear how this sounds in context.
One, two, three, four.
(strumming guitar)
So if that's new for you, if that level of strumming is new,
take some time, a couple weeks, get it down,
and do some really intense, focused practice.
Focus on just the strumming pattern at first,
and then put some chords with it.
The last step to get us to
kind of our ultimate strumming pattern
is to put a muted strum in with our strumming pattern.
And you already know the pattern,
all you have to do is incorporate one more technique
to kind of make the strumming pattern come alive
and make it a little bit more percussive, and it's this:
on the downstroke of beat three,
you're gonna add a muted strum,
so all it is, is you lift up all the pressure
on whatever chord you're making,
so we're kind of muting the strings, right, and
you mute the strings with your palm
as you go through them,
so there's not really any notes ringing out.
(strums muted strings)
It's more percussive, so
one,
two,
three-and-four-and.
So it may take you a while to get used to
doing that kind of muted strum through the strings,
and that's something that you can practice on its own
to make it really tight and percussive,
and don't be afraid to be a little rough with the guitar
to make it sound more like a snare drum.
That's what we're kind of trying to imitate here.
So one,
two,
three-and-four-and,
one,
two,
three-and-four-and.
(strumming guitar)
So that's, to me, the ultimate strumming pattern
that incorporates a lot of different techniques
that can get you to a new, higher level in strumming.
Take each one of these.
If you're a beginner, start with level one,
and you'll go through the steps.
If you're more of a intermediate player,
get this fifth version of the strumming pattern down,
and see what it can do for your playing.
Getting the right technique down
can really make or break your practice time,
and applying that technique to critical guitar fundamentals
will help you get better faster.
That's what this new course
that I'll be announcing very soon
really concentrates on, so to find out more about it,
sign up for updates, or leave comments.
You can follow the link below this video.
Stay tuned,
it's coming out very soon.