This One Strumming Pattern Will Transform Your Bluegrass Rhythm

Today I'm going to show you a strumming pattern that can really make your bluegrass rhythm guitar playing come alive. Stick around to learn more.

Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon.

Coming to you today. So for years, I completely neglected my bluegrass rhythm guitar playing, and the reason was, was because I was like, y'all, I've been spending all day learning, um, you know, learning Tony Rice solos or David Greer. I've just been spending all of my time learning this really fancy, really difficult lead stuff, so why would I bother with working on something simple like strumming chords? Man, how freaking clueless. So if you're watching this video, you know that bluegrass rhythm is important, and it's probably more important than even playing lead. So what I wanted to share with you today was a pattern that someone sat me down and showed me years ago that really, really made my bluegrass rhythm guitar playing come alive. And it really is just one strumming pattern, and it can have a huge difference in your rhythm playing. So if you'd like to get the tabs for this lesson, hit the video description and the top pinned comment, and I will send it to you for free. Okay, so without further ado, let's just jump in here and learn the pattern. So I've got the capo on the 2nd fret. I'm going to be playing a G shape here, and I'm using the old Tony Rice G. I just love the way that sounds on this guitar. Um, And so the pattern, the strumming pattern, is going to be this.

We're going to do—

okay, so I want you to think of this pattern like this: boom, chucka, boom, a chuck, boom, chucka, boom, a chucka.

Okay, booms and chucks, man. But let's, let's, let's, let's do that again.

So we'll do boom, chucka, boom, a chuck, boom, chucka, boom, a chucka.

Okay, so if you want to start, you can, you can really think of this pattern like this.

We'll do boom, chucka, boom, a chuck. Okay, boom, chucka, boom, a chuck.

And when I'm saying boom think of that like the low strings. I've got my 5th string dead right now. I just— a lot of times I like leaving that major 3rd out whenever I'm playing, um, like a bluegrass G like this. It's just a preference. But, um, think of the boom like the bottom 3 strings and the chuck as like the high 3 strings.

Okay, boom, chuck. So we're gonna do like Boom, chucka.

So chucka on the, uh, we'll strum up on that. It's 16th notes.

Boom, chucka, boom, uh, chuck.

Okay, so that's down on the low strings, uh, down and up on the high strings, down and up on the low strings, down on the high strings.

Boom, chucka, boom, uh, chuck.

Okay.

So start there, get that much of the pattern down.

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

So if I kind of increase the tempo on that a little bit, and then if I increase it a little more Okay, so really that's like the first half of the strumming pattern. What we're gonna do to kind of complete one whole strumming pattern here is I'm gonna— I'm gonna do that twice, but at the end, instead of ending on a chuck, I'll do a chucka.

It feels so goofy saying this, but, um, so we'll do boom, chucka, boom, chucka. Boom, chucka, boom, a chucka. Okay, boom, chucka, boom, a chuck. Boom, chucka, boom, a chucka.

Okay, again, speeding it up a little bit here. So there we have it there. That's our basic pattern. So I, I want to tell you why I like this pattern here. Um, it, it fills up enough space and it gives our rhythm playing some drive and some bounce and some feel to it while also letting it breathe. Now, um, you, you may have already seen, um, this lesson right here that I've done on this channel. A lot of people really like that. It's just like 5 different bluegrass strumming patterns. You know, there's a bunch of different ways that we can approach this, and, uh, you know, one, um, is doing like a straight boomer chugga boomer chugga boomer chugga boomer chugga boomer chugga, and, and that's useful sometimes, um, but, but sometimes that gets— it's just a little too much, it's a little too dense. And what I like about this pattern that I'm showing you here today, it's enough to give us some bounce and feel and drive while also letting it breathe.

Just a little bit.

Okay, so now that I've kind of explained this pattern here to you, told you why I like it, why it works, let's do this. I want to play this in context. I'm just gonna play this. I'm just gonna be strumming our— it's, it's an A chord, but it's a G shape here with a Strum Machine backing track. We're just gonna hang out on this A chord. Um, and but I want to contrast this pattern first with like a straight boom-chuck rhythm. So let's hear how that straight boom-chuck rhythm sounds here. So not terrible, um, but not particularly interesting. But now let's hear how our driving rhythm sounds with that same backing track. Okay, you hear the difference? I really hope that you can hear how this driving rhythm gives it drive, gives it, gives it bounce, and gives it some feel there, and really helps you to lock in and really catch the groove of the song there. Okay, so again, that's And remember, if you want to, you can just boom, chucka, boom, chucka. I find that as the tempo increases, sometimes you might want to drop that last chucka at the very end of the pattern and just— okay, so there was that. There was the straight boomchuck rhythm contrasted with the driving rhythm just over our A chord now. But now let's use it in some music here. So let's jump in and I'm gonna do Nine Pound Hammer. There's probably people out there that think that I think that that's the only bluegrass song. It's not, it's not, but it's a great one for, it's just a classic standard that's great for trying out strumming patterns and licks and all kinds of good stuff. But let's hear the straight boomchuck rhythm over Nine Pound Hammer. So again, not bad, but not particularly interesting. So now let's hear our driving rhythm in the context of Nine Pound Hammer. Okay, so I, I prefer the driving rhythm. Um, you know, there may be some people out there that are more traditionalists or kind of purists, if you will, that like the boom chuck rhythm better, that's fine. I just wanted to present this to you, and I wanted to present the contrast to you. Now, whenever we're going to C and D like we do in Nine Pound Hammer— and again, I, you know, I typically do my little Tony Rice C, I like it. If you want to do the traditional C, that's fine too. So with the— when you're doing like the boom part of the rhythm, I you know, we typically play C from the, from the 5th string down. Um, I like to just kind of hit the 5th and 4th strings together, just— or, you know, that's fine to do. And, uh, and then with D, I typically just kind of hit the 4th string for my boom part of the boom cha boom cha boom cha boom cha boom cha boom cha You know, typically one of the things with rhythm is, is that accuracy isn't as important as overall feel is. Now, when we're playing leads and we're playing solos and fiddle tunes, you want to make sure that you're playing is really accurate and really clean because it's important. But when we're doing rhythm, you know, if you're over a D and sometimes you hit an extra string like the 5th or the 6th, that's okay. Or when you're, you know, if sometimes you don't get those chuckas perfectly clean, that's not that big of a deal. What's important is the overall drive, the rhythm, the feel, and the pulse of it. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there as well. Anyway, remember, do that on the 5th string whenever you're doing the boom part of the rhythm. I like to just, just kind of aim to hit the 5th and 4th strings, and then on D just Okay, so there we go. So there it was in 9-pound hammer. Let's do it in a fiddle tune now. And so what we're gonna do for this part is I'm just gonna do the A part of Red Haired Boy. So let's listen to how that sounds with just the straight boom chuck rhythm. Okay, again, not bad but not particularly interesting. But now let's hear that with our driving rhythm. Okay, pretty cool. And again, you may be out there and you might like the boom chuck rhythm better, and that is fine. But I wanted to present this one here to you because, um, it's just, man, getting in a, um, if you ever get in like a jam session with, you know, um you know, like a really good, you know, bass player and mandolin player and banjo player, and you can really lock in, this kind of rhythm really sounds great and really fills out the sound of the ensemble. Okay, so one other variation on this driving rhythm that I had to talk about in this video is— this is kind of my default, we'll call this the fast driving rhythm. So if you're ever, you know, playing with like a banjo player and they kick off some tune like, you know, Train 45 or Shenandoah Valley Breakdown or Blackjack or Pike County Breakdown or one of those, and they just kick it off at the speed of light. This is my go-to rhythm, and it's gonna go like this.

We're gonna do boom, chucka chucka chuck, boom, chucka chucka chuck, boom, chucka chucka chuck, boom, chucka chucka chuck.

Okay, so we'll do boom on these low strings, and yes, I did go ahead and bring up the capo to the 4th fret. So, so boom, and then chuck, chuck, chuck. I'm not doing any more booms in that strumming pattern.

Boom, chuck, chuck, chuck. Boom, chuck, chuck, chuck.

Okay, so when you're playing that kind of slow, it sounds sort of weird, but as you Okay, so real quick, let's hear that in context here, and I will play that little boom-chucka-chucka-chuck rhythm, um, along to, um, it's the Strum Machine backing track, but the tune is the old JD Crow banjo tune called Blackjack. 1, 2, 3, 4. So I really hope that you've seen kind of how simple that this strumming pattern is, but how effective and how powerful it can be. I'm sharing this with you here because, like I said, I neglected my rhythm for a long time And I, I had a pretty bad rhythm style to the point that people didn't even invite me to jam sessions because my rhythm playing was so bad. And then one day I had somebody kind of sit me down and show me this pattern, and I started using it, and it really, really, really improved my rhythm playing. It made playing bluegrass just a lot more fun. Other people wanted to play with me more, and it was just a really, really, really cool thing. I wanted to share this here with you today. Remember, you can hit the video description and the top pinned comment to get the tabs for this. And check out some of these videos right here if you'd like to go a little bit deeper in bluegrass rhythm guitar. As always, thank you for hanging out, and I'll see you next time.