- Learn how to strum a guitar the right way. Here are some guitar strumming patterns that you can incorporate right away to make your guitar playing sound lively.
- Relax your arms and wrist while strumming. Many of you tense your arms and apply too much force while strumming which invariably causes loud harsh sound.
- Strumming is also about how loudly or softly you can strum. Ideally, you should be able to control how loudly or how softly you want to play the guitar. The best would be if you could start off on a middle ground and increase or decrease the strumming sound as and when required.
If you are just beginning to learn how to play the guitar, start off by strumming softly and gradually try to go louder until you reach the peak and start descending again.
- Finally, the key to strumming the guitar well is being patient and start slowly and thoroughly rather than rushing through it and learning it all wrong because your strumming will cause problems for you in the long run. Your mind will register what you practice, so make sure you practice it right.
- The next strumming pattern is exactly like the one mentioned above except for one tiny detail. We are talking about one of the most widely used strumming patterns in rock, country and pop music. Just do the same down and up strumming pattern except that you have to miss a strum.
However, by missing a strum, we don’t mean that you actually stop the strumming motion as that will only mix up the down up pattern. There is a simple trick to this which you can try, the pattern is to miss the 3rd string, hence you can just slightly lift your hand away from the body when you reach the 3rd string so that the pick misses it. In the upward motion, you can bring your hand closer to the guitar’s body at the 3rd string so that your pick hits the strings.
The above two strumming patterns are the most common ones that you can start off with. Keep practicing on it and you will get a hang of it slowly.
Summary
For playing good music on the guitar, you need to learn how to strum well. You can make out how good a guitarist is just on the basis of his or her strumming. There are many strumming patterns that you can learn and practice which will definitely help you improve. The two patterns mentioned above are the basic and common patterns but you can try many combinations and try out other patterns as well. Strumming is easy but requires patience and practice, so don’t give up and keep strumming!
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One of the basics in learning the guitar, strumming is an important if you want your guitar playing to sound well.
You can practice all your chords but you will not sound good unless you properly learn how to strum the chords.
The way guitarists strum can actually tell us if they are good guitarists or not because only a good and an experienced guitarist will know how to bring a song to life with the strumming.
What is Strumming
Strumming is when you play the notes of the guitar chord and at the same time stroke the strings with your finger or the pick.
You can either use a pick or your finger for strumming. In case of a pick, the hardness of the pick is very important as it determines the kind of sound you make. If the pick is too hard, the sound created will be harsh and on the other hand a very soft pick will produce a flappy kind of a sound, so make sure that your pick is of medium thickness.
Tips on How to Strum the Guitar
Here’s how to do it the right way.
Strumming Techniques
Before starting any kind of practice, you should first check If your guitar is in tune and then proceed to practice any strumming pattern. Here are some of the basic guitar strumming patterns:
Guitar Mastery Simplified
The most basic strumming pattern is strumming downward and upwards. To make it simpler, you can count 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. Every time you say and, you strum up.
Keep in mind the following points while you strum in the downward and upward pattern.
Make sure that all the strings are sounding clear and the volume of the strumming is the same in both downward and upward movement.
Do not strum too hard because you may just sound too jarring and loud but at the same time do not strum too softly either as it may sound too wimpy. And most importantly, when strumming, your arm should swing down to up continuously like pendulum without pausing.
Various Exercises
Here are some strumming exercises that you can try on your own.
D = Downstroke
U = upstroke
Exercise 1
D D D D
1+2+3+4 +
Exercise 2
DUDUDUDU
1+2+3+4+
Exercise 3
D DU
1+2+3+4+
Exercise 4
D DU U
1+2+3+4+
Exercise 5
D DU UDU
1+2+3+4+
Watch these videos to learn some basic guitar strumming patterns, including how to strum a guitar using a pick:
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