Lauren Bateman teaches six essential strumming patterns: four in 4/4 time and two in 3/4. She starts with quarter notes, then adds eighth-note up-strums, and shows how to count "1 and 2 and 3 and 4" while practicing each pattern with tips on keeping up-strums light.
So in this lesson, we're going to be talking about some common strumming patterns. I think I wrote out six different strumming patterns for you guys here. Four of them are in four, four time. Two of them are in three, four time. If that is confusing to you, make sure you go back and watch lesson three. If you didn't see the previous lessons in this rhythm series.
Now, before we get into these rhythms, hopefully you've mastered lesson one, which we talked about whole note, half note, and quarter note rhythms. Because unless you have the foundation of that quarter note rhythm, jumping onto eighth notes, adding up strums into your strumming is going to be pretty difficult because you really got to have that foundational timing down. So an eighth note is another type of rhythm, and it is the up strum after the down strum. So we had quarter notes, and I'm playing a G chord here. We had quarter notes which were 1, 2, 3, 4, right? All down strum. So hopefully your down strums and your timings are doing very good by now.
1, 2, 3, 4.
Well, I don't know if you guys have noticed, but in order to do a down strum and do a second down strum, your hand has to come back up, right? So you've technically already been doing up strums without even knowing it. We've been building that muscle without you knowing it. So this is what happens with a lot of students when they get to eighth notes. They focus so much on that up strum that they start, like, jerking and. And they start. Their timing goes way off. So what I want you to do, we're doing our quarter notes, right?
1, 2, 3.
I don't want you to strum up yet. I'm just gonna count the eighth note rhythm, ready?
1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
And notice whenever I say and my hand is moving back up for the next down strum.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and ready?
Now what I'm going to do, I just want you, when you're coming up, just let that. Don't worry about. Don't worry about killing the strings on the way up. Just gently see if you can get that strum. When we come up to do the next down strum, see if you can get the strings to ring.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
And congratulations, you just did your first eighth note strumming pattern. Let's try it again.
1 and 2 and 3 and four and down, up, down, up, down, up or down, up, 1, and 2 and 3 and 4 and down, up, down.
Up, down, up, down, up is the first strumming pattern. Now, for people who have really, like jerky up strums, I tell them just over exaggerate the up strum in the beginning.
1 and 2 and 3 and.
And, you know, usually when we strum, we don't do this, this big of a motion, but sometimes you need to slow things down and over exaggerate the motion for it to really get in time and get in sync. So that is your first rhythm. It's just a simple eighth note rhythm.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
And the next one is a pretty common one that you can use for a lot of songs. So all four of these are very common and will fit over a lot of songs. So you can kind of interchange and play with them and see which works best for the song you're playing with. The next one's going to be 1.
2 and 3 and 4. And 1, 2 and 3 and 4.
And so it's going to be two downs.
Down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up, down. 1, 2 and 3 and 4. 1, 2 and 3 and four. And.
Okay, hear that? That's our next rhythm. And you've already been doing these, but you didn't know. You didn't know because I wasn't telling you yet. Okay, the. The third rhythm is going to be three down. So we're going to be doing 1, 2, 3, 3 and 4. And so it's going to be 1.
2, 3 and 4. And 1, 2. Down, up, down, up. 1, 2, 3 and 4 and 4.
Down, down, down, up, down, up.
Okay, that's what sounds like. And that one, I use that a lot in songs for beginners. That's a really good one. The last one is, you know, for people who maybe need a split second more to change their chords. It's going to be one, two and three and four. One, two and three and four. Or down, down, up, down, up, down. All right, so it'll sound like this.
1, 2 and 3 and 4. 1, 2 and 3 and four. Down, down, up, down.
Okay, can you hear that? You can hear that. Hopefully you can hear it. If not, just keep listening to it. You'll hear. You'll start hearing these rhythms and feeling them. And again, you won't need to count them all the time. So those are our four, four, four rhythms. And what I'm going to do next is show you a couple three, four rhythms that you can use for songs where you count to Three. Hey, guys, real quick, just want to let you know if you're enjoying a lot of this strumming series. I go over this stuff in my seven level course and I also have an entire strumming course available as well. So if you guys want to go check that out, I'll put a link in the description below. So I'm going to show you two of the three, four strumming patterns. We'll stay with that G chord and this first one, it's just like the first one you learned, except we're missing a beat. So instead of it being 1, N2, N3, N4, and it's 1 and 2 and 3 and. Pretty simple, right? So we got down, up, down, up, down, up. So 1, 2, 3, 1 and 2.
And 3 and 1 and 2 and 3 and down, up, down, up, down, up.
And that has the sway feel to it.
The next one that I hear commonly used in terms of strumming is 1.
2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3 and 1st, 2 and 3 and down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up.
So that would sound like this.
1, 2, 3, 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2 and 3. Down, down, up, down, up, down.
So take your time with these six rhythms. They work for a lot of songs. What I would do is I would go over to my website, laurenbatement.com I have a lot of chord charts over there. Most of the songs have the chords. They're either one or two measures. And what you do is you play that entire strumming pattern for that chord. And then when you switch chords, you do that strumming pattern all over again. Depends on how many beats for the song. So songs with 3, 4, pick one of the 3, 4 rhythms. Songs for 4, 4. Pick one of the 4, 4 rhythms. Listen, check them out. You might not like strumming pattern number one. You might like strumming pattern number three better for a song. Listen to the song, see what feels better. I think the biggest thing for figuring out what we're going to talk about this next in the next lesson, what do I hear when I hear a song or strumming pattern? But when you're trying to figure out what strumming patterns to use over a song, you have to try different things. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. I think so many people, they ask me all the time, what strumming pattern do I use? What strumming pattern do I use? Well, if you don't try strumming patterns, you'll never start hearing them. Okay. There's very specific things that you will start hearing. Try it. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. And if you want to start learning about how you can hear different things and in songs for strumming patterns, we're going to move on to the next lesson, which you can pop on over to that video now.
