Strumming 101
Tutorial: Part 2
So let's take a look at some eighth notes. What is an eighth note? Its twice as fast as a quarter note, and a quarter note remember is the primary beat of the music. Again, in 4/4 times, we have four quarter notes per measure, and we just count them, one, two, three, four. So if we were to double that it would be eighth notes, and to do that we are simply going to add up strums into the mix. Again, this is not going to sound like a very exciting strumming pattern yet, because we are just developing the basic rhythm, but if I would go down up, down up, down up, down up, that would be one and two and three and four, end. That takes the same amount of time that it would take to strum four quarter notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, quarter notes and eighth notes.
Again, just really relax that right arm when you strum, try to keep it even, try to keep the volume even throughout as well, so we are not accenting anything at this point, just developing a really steady eighth notes.
So if I did one full measure, eight strums of eighth notes on the D, a full measure of Cadd9, and then two full measures of G, it should sound like this: one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.
Again D, Cadd9, and G. So that's the basic foundation for eighth notes and quarter notes.
I would also mention that if that's tricky for you, the chances are that's it's the left hand that's slowing you down. You can obviously slow the whole exercise down and just strum slower but keep it even, but if you are having trouble switching between the left hand chords while you are strumming, that's a good indicator that you really need to break these two parts; what the left hand is doing and what the right hand is doing into two completely separate exercises, where you could just count with the chords: one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, and so on. So you are just watching your fingers move on the fret board as you count, and try to move them in time.
Then with the right hand you could just mute the strings, and just practice that even eighth note strum. That doesn't sound too difficult but it's actually kind of tricky for most beginners to keep really steady eighth notes, and it is a critical part of the development of good rhythm.
So let's take a look at some more interesting strumming patterns in the next clip.
Graham Nash: Hello everybody, I am Graham Nash, and I am about to try and show you my song 'Teach Your Children'. So it's D, G, D, and the only other odd chord is this B minor.
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