strumming patterns

1) Strumming

Strumming is a technique in which you play the notes of a guitar chord (almost) simultaneously by stroking the strings with a pick or with your finger.

Using your finger sounds the warmest in my opinion. Use the nail of you index finger to strum the strings. Support your index finger with your thumb.

A guitar pick produces a clear sound with a lot of treble in it.  The hardness of the pick is important: a very hard pick can make your sound too harsh while a very soft pick produces a 'flappy' sound. A medium thickness gives the best results for strumming.

You can use a lot of different rhythms for strumming. Let me give you some basic examples of guitar strumming patterns:


Keep the strumming very simple in the beginning with this technique called four to the bar. Start counting from 1 to 4 and strum the chord on every count with a downstroke.  A down stroke means you stroke from the thickest to the skinniest string with a pick or your finger. Make sure you play only the strings that are marked with a black or white dot (on the chord diagram).  Failing to do this will make your chord sound bad.

In music notation it looks like this:

Rhythms are written between 2 vertical lines (bar lines): |                                      | This is called a bar. Each bar has 4 counts. : this is the symbol for a strum. Each strum like this has a       duration of 1 count.  : the upward arrow tells you that the strum should go from       the thickest to the skinniest string. This is called a        downstroke.

Try this basic strumming pattern on some of the chords. If you succeed in doing this go to the next step:

Now we put an 'and' between the counts: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2... On the counts you strum with a downstroke (), on the 'and' you strum with an upstroke (: from the skinniest string to the thickest).

It looks like this:

: this means that each strum has the duration of a half count. If a couple of these follow each other, the tail is connected:   -in groups of 4:   -or in groups of 2:

Here are a few more strumming patterns:




In this last example you see a curve between the 2nd and the 3rd count. This means that those 2 notes are played together, so the 2 half notes become a whole note.







Now start practicing these strumming patterns on some easy guitar songs.