Bluegrass Rhythm Guitar 101- Five Classic Strumming Patterns For Solid Bluegrass Rhythm Playing

1, 2, 3, 4.

Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today with a lesson that's a little different here. We're going to be talking about bluegrass rhythm playing today. And so I had initially thought about making this one really long lesson here But I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna small-chunk some of these rhythm lessons up, and this is gonna be the first one out of several that I'm gonna be uploading here where we kinda go into the details and, you know, really cover the basics of bluegrass rhythm playing. But what I wanna talk about today, I just wanna give you 5 basic bluegrass strumming patterns that you can implement immediately in your rhythm playing and I really think you're gonna get a lot out of these. So again, hit the link down below to get the tabs for this lesson. Let's go ahead and start. Okay, so what I'm gonna do first is I'm gonna show you these 5 basic strumming patterns just on a G, and then after that we're gonna go through a G, C, and a D chord progression. Okay, so let's start with the, the first one here. This is like our basic boom-chuck rhythm here.

We're gonna do—

okay, and so on G right there I'm gonna hit the 6th string and then I'm gonna strum. I'm basically hitting the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd strings. And then I'm gonna hit the 4th string and do the same thing.

Okay? Okay?

And that's just separating those lows and highs and giving that just a little bit of a bounce there. So again, on G, just that basic boom-chuck rhythm. Okay, so I wanted to start off with that pattern, but I'm going to be honest with you, I really don't use that one a whole, whole lot. I mean, unless— in my opinion, unless you were going for like a very, very like deliberate, like old-school retro sound. I'm talking like a, like kind of Carter Family or like first-generation bluegrass sound, I don't really use the boom-chuck rhythm just a whole, whole lot. Now sometimes it might work if you're like sitting around with another guitar player, but I did wanna go ahead and start off with that because the other ones, the other strumming patterns will build from that. So let's go to the next one here, and it's gonna go like this.

We're gonna do.

So with this one, it's like boom-chuck, boom-a-chucka, okay? Boom, chuck, boom, a chucka, boom, chuck, boom, a chucka, boom, chuck. And the way I'm doing that on a G is— so we'll do boom, chuck like we did a second ago, down on that 6th string, strum 4th, 3rd, and 2nd. And then we're going to do— and that's down and up on the 6th, 5th, and 4th strings, and then down and up on the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings. Okay, I love this strumming pattern. It's, it's, it's one of the strumming patterns I use the most. And you can honestly, if you'll just apply that pattern to, to your, to your rhythm playing, I think that can cover a lot of ground in this style. It just, um, it, it's, it's a great rhythm pattern in that it separates those lows and highs and also gives your rhythm playing a little bit of a bounce and it gives it some drive. Okay, I love that, that, that rhythm pattern there. It's great. I use it all the time.

Again, that's Boom, chuck, boom-a-chucka, boom, chuck, boom-a-chucka.

Okay, okay, so let's go to this next pattern here, and what we're gonna do on this one is, rhythmically speaking, it's gonna be the same thing that we did on the previous example. We're gonna do boom, chuck, boom-a-chucka, but we're gonna throw in some cross picking in there to, to just kind of spice up our rhythm playing a little bit.

It's gonna go like this.

We're gonna do Okay, and so all we're doing there is we're gonna do boom, chuck, just like we did in the first one, but then we're gonna do— so we're gonna do down on the 4th, up on the 3rd, down on the 2nd, up on the 1st. Okay, so it just It gives our rhythm playing a really, really clean and crisp sound while also giving it some bounce and some drive there. Okay, so that's a great one to practice too. That one works really the best for songs that are really at more of like a moderate tempo. I don't typically use that when I'm playing tunes that are kind of getting faster, tunes that are really fast. But if you got tunes that are kind of at a moderate tempo that have some drive to them, you know, that, that rhythm playing style works really well. So let's go to the next one here, and it's gonna go like this.

We're gonna do—

okay, so this one is Booma Chaka. And it's just Booma Chaka, Booma Chaka, Booma Chaka, Booma Chaka. And what we're going to do on this is just do down and up on the 6th, 5th, and 3rd strings, and down and up on the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st, and just repeat that. Okay, okay, so that's a great one, um, to apply, um, you know, whenever, you know, if you're playing like what we would call like hard driving bluegrass, you know what I mean? If you listen to any of the, like, the old Lonesome River Band stuff, especially like when Dan Taminski was in the band, that kind of sound, this stuff works really well for that. That rhythm pattern works really well for stuff that, like bluegrass, it has like a lot of drive to it. Okay, so there's 4 basic strumming patterns there. Let's do one more here, and this next one is— it's, it's, it's, it's the rhythm pattern that I like to use anytime the tempo starts to get kind of fast. And for that, you know, kind of like above 120 to like 130 beats a minute, at that tempo or above, a lot of times I'll default to this one. And this one's gonna go like this. We'll do that. 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, and so what we're gonna do on this, it's like boom, chucka, chucka, chuck, boom, chucka, chucka, chuck, boom, chucka, chucka, chuck. And on the boom, you can hit just the 6th string, or you can kind of hit the 6th, 5th, and 4th, and then chucka, chucka, chuck. That's mostly just on your higher strings.

Boom, chucka, chucka, chuck, boom, chucka, chucka, chuck.

Okay, what that does is it gives, gives your rhythm playing some bounce and some drive, but it also lets it breathe a little bit. Because at those faster tempos, if I tried to come in and do like the fourth pattern, the boom-a-chucka, boom-a-chucka, it just, it doesn't work. It would just sound frantic. You know, if I'm trying to— I just— no, no, that just— that sounds, that sounds out of control and frantic. But if we kind of give that pattern a little breathing room, okay, then it works really nicely. So real quick, um, I, I'm, I'm going to play all 5 of those rhythm patterns with a backing track that just has like, like the bass and the mandolin chop in there, and I'll play rhythm over that. So I'm going to go through all 5 of those rhythm playing patterns with the backing track. Now sound like this: 1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4.

All right, so You can really take those 5 patterns and just start applying that to the chord changes that you're playing in, you know, bluegrass songs or fiddle tunes. Um, but, um, I, I wanted to go ahead and go through just a basic G, C, and a D chord progression and apply, um, uh, and apply those strumming patterns to like the whole chord progression there. Okay, so let's start here. We'll do just our basic boom chuck rhythm here. We'll do, um, okay, so on C we'll do— we'll alternate that bass line. D Okay, so now, um, let's go to, uh, the next one here, and we're gonna do our boom-chuck-booma-chuck rhythm, okay, through G, C, and D. Okay, so on the G, boom, chuck, boom-a-chucka, boom, chuck, boom-a-chucka. We can go to C and we'll do boom, chuck, boom-a-chucka. I'm doing that alternating bass line.

Boom, chuck, boom-a-chucka, boom, chuck. Okay, boom, chuck, boom-a-chucka, boom, chuck.

And then on D, boom. So I'm hitting the 4th string, boom, chuck, boom-a-chuck. I'm kind of just hitting that 5th string for the boom-a-chuck.

And then back to G.

Alright, so one more time, boom, chuck, boom-a-chuck rhythm through G, C, and D. Okay, so now let's do it. We'll do the third one here, and we'll do boom, chuck, boom-a-chucka, but we'll do it with the cross picking. Okay, and so we'll do that again. And so that's just boom, chuck, and then— and on C, you can do this C, or you can do the old like Tony Rice C9, Cadd9, sus2, whatever you want to call it. But again, just boom, chuck, still picking those that 4th, 3rd, and 2nd string. 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st.

We'll go to D, back to G.

Okay, so now let's do our, uh, booma chaka booma chaka kind of driving rhythm through G, C, and D, and we'll do I'll do it again. Okay, so just boom-a-chucka, boom-a-chucka. I guess I'm doing that 4 times on each chord. And again, you can go to the Tony Rice C, or you can do just the old, the old school C here. And on that one, I'll do the alternating bass, just boot. And when I'm doing that, I'm just kind of hitting the 5th and 4th strings. And then, and so when I alternate it right there, it's like 6th, 5th, and 4th. It doesn't have to be completely accurate because when we're playing rhythm, um, the feel, the kind of bounce, the drive, and the rhythm is more important than the accuracy of the notes you're hitting. But that's just a general rule to go by. And then on D, just— so it's like I'm hitting the 4th string, boom-a-chucka, and then the 5th string, boom-a-chucka. Okay, so one more time, our boomer chucker driving rhythm to G, C, and D. And then now let's do our kind of fast driving rhythm. The boom, chucka, chucka, chuck rhythm through G, C, and D. And that'll go like this: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Okay, and that's just boom, chucka, chucka, chuck, boom, chucka, chucka, chuck.

I'm going to this C, boom, chucka chucka chuck, boom, chucka chucka chuck, to D, boom, chucka chucka chuck, boom, chucka chucka chuck, back to G, boom, chucka chuck, boom, chucka chucka chuck. So now, same deal here, I'm gonna play each of these rhythm patterns, each of these strumming patterns along with a backing track that just has the bass and the mandolin chop, so you can kind of hear how this stuff sounds in context.

1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Okay, so there we have it. If you will permit me just some parting words of wisdom. This is like the Jerry Springer monologue at the end of the show. Um, but, um, one of the things that you want to avoid when playing bluegrass rhythm is what I would refer to as a lack of awareness. We've all experienced rhythm guitar players that have a lack of awareness. Maybe some of us have been the rhythm guitar players with a lack of awareness. Um, here's what I mean by that. I think all of us have been to a jam session where there might be one guitar player or eight who are all playing rhythm like this. You know you have.

You know you have.

It sucks. It is obnoxious. Um, and it, it's a lack of awareness. Now, if you want to do that just to have fun, if you're wanting to do like a bluegrass punk thing and it's all about the energy, um, that's fine. But if you're wanting to play with other people, have it sound good, have the other instruments and singers be heard. Um, I would just recommend listening. That's one of the most important things for a rhythm player, because what's— I guess what's so different about rhythm playing than lead playing— I mean, the technicalities, obviously— but when you're playing rhythm, you're not the star of the show, okay? When you're playing rhythm, you should, you should be making sure that whatever is leading, whether that's another instrument doing a lead break, whether that's a singer— maybe you're accompanying, maybe you're singing while you're playing— you want to make sure that whatever is leading can be heard and that what you're doing is complementing that. To boil it down here, that usually means playing quieter. Not always, Like, if I'm at a— if I'm at a jam or something like that, and let's say like a banjo player goes to like play a break, I'll play a little bit louder because the banjo is a really loud instrument. And depending on the banjo player, some people play louder than others. Um, same deal with a fiddle. But if there's like a mandolin player playing a break, I want to bring that down. If especially too, if there's someone singing, you want to make sure you can hear every single word that that singer is singing and that what you're doing is not overpowering that. So that usually means playing quieter and just listening to what's going on around you, um, and, um, you know, having an awareness of that. And then taking these strumming patterns here, um, you know, and kind of working through those, seeing which one of them fit certain songs, um, I think will really, really, really take your your rhythm playing to the next level. It will help you to enjoy playing this music a lot more, and it will make you a better musician. Other people will enjoy playing with you more. And yeah, you'll just— your whole experience of playing this music, I think, will be, um, will be improved significantly. Um, and, and also too, I, um, it, it's definitely the case for me And I remember when I was a teenager, I went to see Ricky Skaggs, and this is when Clay Hess was playing in Skaggs' band way back in like the early 2000s. And, um, I was able to talk to him after the show, and you know, I'm asking him about, you know, licks and how to play fast and, you know, who he listens to and all that kind of stuff. And he told me, he was like, he goes, man, I'll be honest with you, he goes, I have more fun playing rhythm than I do lead. Like, I did— I didn't believe him, um, but after doing this for a long time, just a lot of times playing rhythm guitar is just more fun than playing lead. Um, so I just wanted to kind of send off with some parting words there. But again, remember, if you're playing rhythm with other people, make sure that whatever's leading, that you can really, really, really hear that. That usually means playing quieter, um, and just having some awareness, having some awareness, just listening to what's going on around you. And avoid the— I don't recommend that.

I don't recommend it.

But anyway, so again, I've got lots more videos because there's a lot of ground in here that I didn't cover today. I didn't talk about like bass note runs and chord substitutions, but so I've got several more rhythm videos here where I'm going to cover that ground and we can kind of put all of this stuff together. But I've had a lot of people asking me about this, so I wanted to go ahead and just start you off here. 5 basic strumming patterns on G and through G, C, and D, and you can start working on those today. And I really think that you'll find that your rhythm playing will sound a lot better by using these. So again, hit the link down in the video description to get the tabs for this, and I'll see you next time.