How to Strum a Guitar

Freeandeasyguitar.com So, so far with all these lessons we’ve talked to you about, I’d hold the guitar. I’d hold the peak. I’d both of your hands. I always talked about the chords top learn and I haven’t really talked to you all about the strumming and that’s really one of the basic and the really important things with learning to play the guitar. So I’m going to talk about that here in this lesson. The one thing I want to let you know right now is as you learn to play the guitar with strum pattern, you’re going to find that whatever you’re trying to learn the song and probably the one thing that we give you the most trouble as a beginner, it's learning the strum patterns. Is it down, down, down, up, up,--[Demonstration] or is it something different and how to get those to figure out. I wanted to 00:47 kind of I hope I 00:50 an idea by a lot of people that things have only one strum pattern for a certain song and that’s false and you can—there’s really an unlimited—I want to say infinite but I guess that’s not really accurate. There’s a lot of different way to different strum patterns you can use for each song. The biggest thing about the strum patterns is keeping on the rhythm of the song, okay. As a beginner, I want to give you a couple of strum patterns to practice and you can play this along with your favorite chords that we just learned and this is really how your going to get good at chords and changing from chord to chord. These are the strum patterns, okay. So, this is the down strum. A down strum is when you get all the strings or two or more strings, starting on top, okay with the six string or the five or the four and you only want to start within strumming down and way back, you 1st:48 your hand. It’s a down strum. An up strum is the opposite against1:52 from the string that’s one to six, okay. So, the first basic strum pattern. I want you to use four beats. It's really simple. It’s just down, down, down, down, okay. So if you want to practice it, you can pause video right now and do whatever you want, pick your favorite chord. I’m in a D right now and let’s get down, down, down, down switch to another chord, which is a G chord here. Down, down, down, down switch to another chord and how about a C chord, just four down strums okay. once you’ve got that down, you can do something like this, down, up, down, up, down, up okay it's four 2:48 still –[Demonstration] but instead just having the four downs, your going to go down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up—[Demonstration] and you can also 3:07—[Demonstration] switch chords—[Demonstration] Okay, and then you can change them. It’s just the basic strum patterns. Another one that I use a lot, this is little more advance and just do this one. Go down, down, up, up okay. [Demonstration] One more for right now. I’m going to give you couple more tricks for you. Try this one. I’m going to place the envelop this one for new beginners. Maybe tough here to get it first but I want you to just keep practicing it, slow and write it down. Okay, that’s one key the thing. I’ll tell you the strum pattern but I’m going to some of the videos and try to be as quick as possible on basic strum pattern pretty quickly. So you may have a pen and paper and just try and write it down or you want the video and write it down until you get what you think I’ve said. So try this one, [Demonstration] okay, so one more time—[Demonstration] Whenever you get that perfected kind of slowly in your head, this is what it sounds like and this is probably the most common strum patterns that I 4:43. It sounds like this—[Demonstration] switch chords. That’s just—[Demonstration] Practice that strum pattern and if you can master that one, you’re in good shape. The more you play with 5:25 you’ll pick up other strum patterns as well. So, just in case you have no trouble in that, I’m going to give you another one, try it – [Demonstration] That’s a good one to use, if you want some 5:55 and then it’ll—okay try this out. Those should be some good ones that you start it off with. As you get used to those strum patterns and you get go with changing your chords. That’s the best way to practice your chord, is playing the strum pattern--switch chord. That’s how can you practice your chord so—very simply and the more you practice the strum patterns and the chords 6:32. So, that’s it. Along the other strum patterns, you can se in my videos maybe a little bit different to that. I a lot of the reason piece, I’ve tried to tell you the strum patterns. So the old ones, I may not have but that’s a challenge to you and part of learning on your own and through this videos, part of learning for the guitar is trying to figure out the strum patterns on your own. When I first started, I have a tough time. I couldn’t really pick out a strum pattern. Were off the 7;00 but what I did and I still do to this day, is whether I’m riding in my car or I’m in the airport and listening to my Ipod or anything like that. Any song right here, I usually can’t keep my hand from moving so 7:12 but if I’m sitting in the airport, I used to do John Meyer song and 7:12. [Demonstration] Just anything that try and make it 7:23. alright, one of this—this would sound like you know or –[Demonstration] anything like that. I would suggest you all do that so from now on, if your riding in your car and your listening to some music or your sitting at work with your disk or you listen to your IPOD at school—what you should be doing is paying attention. But anytime goes in the music alright, I want you to just take your picking hand and just kind of mess around and try and get some writing down and sooner than you expect and you know, your going to be listening to a song and you haven’t pick up the pattern off the bet. You know and also, I’m going to help you guys if you have questions about the strum patterns and certain songs but at least give it a shot for yourself first because that’s part of learning to pick these strum patterns as 8:10 just like anything else. You’ve got to give it a shot if you have 8:14. So, I hope this lesson helped on the strong patterns a little bit and remember, 8:22 when your strumming. It's going to be tough at first and if you drop your pick in your sound hole, don’t worry about it just turn your guitar upside down and shake it until8:30 if the pick keeps the 8:32 don’t worry 8:33.so you just keep motivated and keep on playing the guitar,. It's going to be a part of your life and 8:42 email at questions at freeandeasyguitar.com. If you have anything that you like me to clarify and check out the forms. I’ve got thousands of people there and ready to answer your questions. Lots of beginner guitars in there as well as advance players. So there8:57 for everyone in your questions in there. Alright guys, good luck and check out until to the next lesson, take care.