Beginner Strum Patterns - 6 Essential Strums for Beginners

Hey, guitar enthusiast Lauren Bateman here, and I'm going to show you six essential strumming patterns for you to learn. And we're going to start from absolute beginner and get a little bit more into late beginner. Now, the great thing about the guitar is if you learn some chords and you throw some strumming patterns over them, you can start playing real songs. And you can do this in a matter of a week. It really is that quick. If you learn the right chords and the right strumming patterns, you can start playing music in your first week of learning the guitar.

Now, the hardest thing for a lot of students is the timing aspect. So we're going to work a lot on that, and we're going to start off with a very, very simple strumming pattern that I start all my beginners on. And the reason I start with this strumming pattern is it allows you to play the guitar, but it also gives you time to change between chords, which is very, very hard for students in the beginning. So if you don't know any chords, I'm just going to quickly show you two chords that I teach students. And the first chord is going to be an E minor. First finger is going to go to the top string, up one fret, down one string, and then the second finger is going to go right below it. Okay, so this is an E minor chord. And we're just going to use this for now to strum. And then I'm going to show you a second chord that we're going to use to do some chord transitions, because that's what happens in songs. You got to play multiple chords, not just one. But first, we're going to work on the timing. So we've got our E minor chord. So first finger, first fret, second fret, down a string, second finger right below that on the second string. Okay. And right now, I don't know where my pick is, so I'm just strumming with my thumb down on the guitar. Okay. If you have a pick, you're just going to strum down with your pick. Now, whole note strumming is we're going to strum once, and we're going to count to four. And the reason I do this with students is because I really want you to focus on timing because you can be a great guitar player, but if you're out of time, it's going to sound whole horrible, especially if you want to play with others or play along to tracks or play along to music. So I'm going to count Us in four. And on the one we're just going to strum down on our E minor. All right? So it's going to be one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. 1, 2, 3, 4. One, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, four.

Okay, not too hard. All right? But the timing is making sure that you're in time with that one. And then what we do is we would add a chord change. So right now you're just working on the timing of. Okay, I'm really focusing in on getting the downbeat that down strum on that one count. And now what we're going to do. So we have our E minor chord. All we're going to do is take our first finger and move it to the B string right here on the first fret. This is what I call the easy C chord.

So all we have to do is move one finger between these strums. Okay. So we're gonna take our whole note strumming. And believe it or not, if you learn these two chords, you can play Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles. Alright? And you can use some of these strumming patterns in that song. So we're starting off with E minor. I'm gonna do one count in, we're gonna strum E minor and then the next iteration we're gonna go to C, then back to E minor, then back to C. So it's gonna be 1, 2, 3, 3, 4. E minor 2, 3, 4. To C, 2, 3, 4. E minor two, three, four. To C, 2, 3,. E minor two, three, four dot To C. Keep going. 1, 1, 1, 1, 2 more times and 1, 1, 1.

So you can see by just strumming and playing in time, it sounds very musical. Okay? Very, very musical. And it's more important to keep your strumming simple and play in time than it is to go really fast and do something like.

Where you got those big, those big pauses between your chord changes. Slow and smooth is always better than fast and choppy. So as your fingers get faster and you get better at switching chords, you can add more strumming. So now we're going to move on to what we call half note strumming. This is the next stage of strumming. So we're going to start on that E minor and now we're going to strum down on 2 and 3. So it's going to sound like this. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, four. 1, 2, 3, Four.

Okay, so 1, 2, 3, 4. And then what we do is we do it on two chords so it be 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4 dot.

Okay, and when I stop counting, I'm still counting in my head. Eventually, rhythm, you'll start to feel the rhythm, and you won't have to count it as much. But in the beginning, I highly recommend just count out aloud as you strum and really go. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, four. 1, 2, 3, Four. 1, 2, 3, FOUR. Don't be afraid to count out loud. It will really help you work on your timing and. And dial this in, because if you're. Again, as we go through this, we're going to add more strums, and if your timing is off, it's not going to sound good. Let's just do a few back and fourths with the E minor and the C chord. One, two, three, four. And then we're going to switch to C. One, two, three, Four. Ready? Here we go. One, two, three, 4. One, two, three, FOUR. One, two, three, fourth. One, two, three,4. One, two, three,four. One, two, three, fOUR. One, two. Keep counting.

All right, if you're feeling good about that, we're going to add even more strumming now. So we're going to move on to what we call quarter note strumming. So we're going to do four strums per chord. Okay, so first we're going to start off by counting to four, just staying on our E minor chord to work on our timing, nailing that in. And then we're going to go from E minor to C. So let's start off with the E minor chord. We're just going to count to four, four down strums. One, two, three, four.

1, 2, 3, 4. All right, I hopped over to my table and grabbed one of my nifty Lauren Bateman picks so that the strumming will come out a little bit louder on this. This video. And if you don't know who I am, my name is Lauren Bateman, and I specialize in teaching absolute beginners, particularly older adults over the age of 50, how to have more fun playing their guitars today. And we're working on strumming and what we're going to do now. So we did that quarter note strumming, and we're going to go from E minor to C. So four E minor strums, four C strums, four E minor strums, four c strums. Okay? So we got 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4 dot 1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4 dot One more.

Now, you might have noticed it's sounds like I'm going faster, but the more strums we add into our playing, the faster we have to go, the faster our chord changes have to be. Okay? So that's why just focusing on simple chords in the beginning is helpful. But you can see how important is to really work and focus in on that timing. Okay, so that was quarter note strumming. The next thing we're gonna work on is eighth note strumming. And this is where things get really, really fun. We'll slow it down a little bit, because if I go at that speed, it's going to sound like this.

And that might be fast for some of you. Now, again, the caveat to this is the faster the strumming, you know, the more intricate the strumming, the faster the chord changes have to be. That's why I start people on whole notes, because it gives them enough time. Because in the beginning, our fingers just aren't fast enough on those chord changes. I don't care how young you are, how old you are, it takes time to develop that dexterity. So learning strumming patterns separate and then putting them with chords is always very, very helpful. Okay. If you're trying to play a song and your chord changes are very slow, stick to simple strumming patterns until your chord changes get faster. Then you can move to more intricate strumming patterns. So, eighth notes, this is where we're going to introduce up strums. So so far, we've just done down strums. We call those the downbeat. The up strums are called the upbeat. Okay. Because we're strumming up. Okay. And how these are going to be counted is 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And so our quarter notes were 1, 2, 3, 4. One, two, three, four. 8th notes are going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and 1 and 2 and 3 and four. And so. So on the 1, 2, 3, 4, we're gonna do down strums. On the ands, we are going to do up strums. It's going to sound like this. With our E minor chord, it's going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And.

So it's 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. And.

So now we're gonna try introducing a chord change. Now, if this is too fast and you can't do the chord change, just stay on the E minor chord. But we're gonna try and change on the one. Now, A little hint, you might want to start changing to your chord early. Meaning on the last up, strum the chord before you might already want to start changing into the new. The new chord. As you get faster, you won't have to do that as much. But again, force this hand to catch up with the strumming hand. Don't slow down the strumming for your fretting hand, okay? Force the fretting hand to catch up with the strumming hand. I'd rather you, I'd rather you build a chord, I'd rather you keep the strumming going and you build a chord as you go than stop the strumming. Okay. Because it's much more consistent and sounds much more musical if you keep the strumming going. Alright, so here we go. We're going 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and e minor 3 and 4 and c and 2 and 3 and 4 and E minor.

And C on your own.

One more time.

Super, super cool, really. And you can get that very, very fast if you want to. I think that's actually a decent strumming pattern for Eleanor Rig. But you could also do it all as downs.

Much harder to do because it's all down strums. Your strumming hand has to be so much more faster. That's kind of hard for absolute beginners to do. But just another example of a strumming pattern that you could do. Now the great thing about whole notes and eighth notes is that you can mix them together so you could play a strumming pattern like 1, 2 and 3 m 4 m. 1, 2 n 3 m 4 m 1 d m 2 m 4 m.

So it's basically down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up, down, up. Let's just try that on the E minor chords. We got 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2 and 3 and 4 and 1, 2 and 3 and 4. And.

Now if you're finding that too fast, sometimes we can just take the eighth note on the end and we can go 1, 2 and 3 and 4. 1, 2 and 3 and 4 dot 1, 2 and 3 and 4th. 1, 2 and 3 and four.

Those are two great strumming patterns that you can use on songs. So if we go from E minor to C, it'll sound like this. 1, 2 and 3 and 4. 1, 2 and 3 and four. 1, 2 and 3 and Four.

If you enjoyed this lesson and feel like you have a long way to go with your strumming, I would love to help you in my seven level guitar system. It's an entire course for for beginner guitar students to not only learn chords, but also lots of different strumming patterns, how to put everything together and play real songs. It is a step by step program to take you from being an absolute beginner to almost the late beginner early intermediate stage of playing guitar. So while learning guitar here on YouTube is a lot of fun, hands down, nothing beats having a step by step system a program to learn from. So if you're someone who prefers to learn in a step by step process, I highly recommend you go to the link in the description below. Check out my seven level guitar system. I would love to help you have more fun with your guitar today. I hope to see you in another lesson video real soon.