Beginner guitar players often find guitar strumming challenging and difficult. In this lesson, I have simplified the process of learning guitar strumming so that you start strumming the guitar easily and effectively.
Guitar strumming is a combination of up and down strokes, played on the guitar with your rhythm hand. A strum or a stroke is a sweeping action that sweeps across the guitar strings in the upward or downward direction. When you strum a guitar, your fingers or a guitar plectrum is brushing against the strings and this produces a desired sound from the guitar.
Strumming is also related to the rhythm when playing a stringed instrument. Different strumming patterns make up for different rhythms. We will learn more about rhythm and strumming patterns in this blog.
Guitar And Ukulele Strumming Patterns That Fit Most Songs
Having a good body posture is important while strumming a guitar. A good stance for playing the guitar while sitting down will have the following traits: -
The ideal position to strum on the guitar is near the centre of the sound hole. You can vary this position a little and strum a little towards the bridge or a little towards the neck. As you move your strumming position towards the bridge, the treble response of the guitar sound increases. As you move towards the neck, the bass response of the sound increases.
Try not to strum your guitar way too close to the bridge or even over the fretboard. This will result in an uneven sound response.
How To Strum A Guitar: 14 Steps (with Pictures)
A downstroke is played when you brush the guitar strings while sweeping your strumming hand from the sixth string towards the first string. It is a downward motion of the strumming hand (towards the floor) and comes naturally while strumming.
An upstroke is played when you brush the guitar strings while sweeping your strumming hand from the first string towards the sixth string. The upstroke is an upward motion of the hand(towards the roof) and will require a little practice to get used to.
While playing an upstroke, try hitting just the treble strings of your guitar, i.e., the first three or four strings. An upstroke need not hit all the six strings on the guitar. Up stokes are generally gentle and produce a subtle sound.
The Ups And Downs Of Strumming A Guitar
Strumming patterns are different repeating combinations of up and down strokes, played to different time signatures. Different strumming patterns lead to different rhythms and feel. To play a particular rhythm on a stringed instrument, you play a particular strumming pattern.
One can make hundreds of different strumming patterns. Still, for beginners, the very basic strumming pattern that everyone starts with is playing a downstroke on every downbeat. i.e., counting 1, 2, 3, 4 and playing a downstroke on all four beats.
A downstroke is denoted by a down arrow or an “inverted U” symbol or D. An upstroke is denoted by an up arrow or a V Symbol or letter U
How To Strum Down Up With Fingers
To practice guitar strumming, start with the basic 4 bar beats. Play downstroke on all four beats. Next, add an upstroke to the last upbeat and gradually fill an upstroke to all upbeats of the measure.
Continuing, add up stroke at the very first upbeat of the bar. So the strumming pattern becomes DUDUDUDU. Play this pattern with a continuous hand motion.
An accent is added emphasis to any particular strum. When you accent a strum, you simply play it a little louder or softer, compared with other notes. Accents are used in strumming to add dynamics to guitar playing. Accent creates emotional change and impacts the listener.
Easy Guitar Strumming Patterns From Well Known Songs
Anyone can easily come up with their own strumming pattern by coming up with a combination of downstroke and upstroke. The golden rule while creating a strumming pattern is that it should complement other musical elements of the song.
You can come up with your own strumming patterns following the beat of the drum, or you can also come up with your own strumming pattern according to the melodies of the vocalists. The key is to listen to the accented notes and figuring out the down and upbeat of the songs.
Now you know the basics of guitar strumming, try playing the songs that you know with different strumming patterns and experiment. How did it go, let me know in the comment section below.Your Strumming hand (also called the plucking hand or picking hand) is the one that strikes the strings to produce sound. This can be done with a plectrum or with the fingers and thumb. The latter technique is known as fingerstyle or fingerpicking.
How To Strum A Guitar String Fast
You should already be familiar with the fundamental aspects of how to hold a plectrum from previous lessons on this site. Although, I do not expect beginners to get to worried about technique when holding a plectrum. Just make sure it is held between the index finger and thumb and you strike the strings with the pointy end!
Below you will see two pictures, one showing a downstroke and the other showing an upstroke. Try both of these on your guitar without worrying about holding any frets with your left hand. You will notice that downtrokes are easier to play. Do not feel tempted to just play downstrokes in your everyday playing, otherwise your skills will not develop properly.
Once you are used to playing downstrokes and upstrokes you can try alternate strumming. You may notice that when you play a downstroke your hand ends in the position to play an upstroke. Try alternating between downstrokes and upstrokes and compare it to playing only downstrokes. You will notice that alternate strumming is a lot easier and more efficient. Once you are comfortable with downstrokes and upstrokes you can move on to some basic strumming patterns.
Best Guitar Strumming Patterns And Techniques
Now try plucking the strings. You may find that this technique is much harder to master. Just remember to pluck gently and keep a relaxed grip on the plectrum. Downstrokes are much easier with plucking as well, but do not neglect playing with upstrokes. In tab (written music) we read from left to right. Because strummed notes are sounded simultaneously, they are shown above one another in tab.Most guitarists are very comfortable strumming chords using a downstroke strum motion. To keep things simple, this is usually the first strum motion guitar players learn. Adding upstroke strums to play new strum patterns is the next step for guitar strumming lessons and most guitarists struggle with getting a smooth, even sounding upstroke initially.
To eliminate the pick feeling like it is getting “stuck” on the upstroke and improve your strumming technique, I am going to show you two key guitar strum techniques for your strumming hand. First, let’s look at what causes the upstroke strumming problems for most guitarists.
This angle gives the guitarist a very smooth feeling as the pick moves over the strings on the downstroke and also creates a very good sounding guitar tone. However, the problem arises when the guitarist attempts to play the upstroke strum using the same pick angle. Because of the pick angle, the pick “digs” into the strings on the upstroke, ruining the smooth and even strum feel and also creating a harsh guitar tone that does not mesh with the good sounding downstrum tone.
Acoustic Guitar Strumming Patterns (getting Started + Worksheets)
Now that you are aware that this is happening, we can correct the problem by simply adjusting the pick angle to create a pick position that will work for both upward and downward guitar strumming. We want to create a pick angle that does not lean so much in one direction that it makes it difficult to get a good strum motion in both directions.
Simply rotate your pick hand wrist back just a bit to create a pick angle that it more perpendicular in relation to the strings. It should look more like this:
Now the pick will now glide more evenly over the strings in both the upward and downward strumming motion. A small adjustment of the pick angle and just being aware of what is causing the pick problem will go a long way toward improving your feel and the tone of the guitar on the upward strum and make your guitar strum techniques much easier to play.
How To Play The Boom Chuck Strumming Pattern On Guitar
Now that we have corrected the pick angle problem, let’s look at our pick grip pressure and how this affects our ability to strum in both up and down directions.
When strumming chords, it is important not to over grip the pick and hold it too tightly with the pick hand. For strumming chords, just tight enough to keep the pick in the hand without losing your grip or control of the pick is the correct amount of pick grip pressure. Other techniques may require a different grip pressure, but in our guitar strumming lessons and strumming chords we want to use the least amount of pressure necessary.
If you maintain a relaxed grip on the pick when strumming, the pick will angle slightly toward the floor on the downstroke and toward the ceiling on the upstroke. This slight change in the pick angle will start to happen almost automatically as you practice these guitar strum techniques.
How To Strum A Guitar
With the proper amount of pick grip pressure, this is
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