Lauren Bateman shows why up-strums trip you up (you're trying to match your down-strum speed) and how to fix it: slow down, practice half the pattern first, isolate the up-strums alone, clap the rhythm without the pick, then build back up. Up-strums naturally hit fewer strings and sound thinner.
Hey, guys, this is Lauren. I'm here in the home office, and.
I had some questions that people had popped over to me saying, hey, I'm having trouble with these strumming patterns. I've been doing, you know, all down strums. And as soon as I throw an up strum in, it goes haywire. And my brain cannot do it for some reason.
And that's a pretty common thing.
Most people are really good at, you know, strumming four down strums.
So they do, you know, they're like, cool. I got the four down strums.
That's awesome.
I did your video on four down strums. Now I want to throw some up strums in there because obviously, you know.
Four down strums is great, but it's.
Not the coolest thing in the world. So you want to be able to throw some up strums in there. But for some people, they go to do that and, like, their brain and their hand do not want to connect. It's this really weird thing with upstrom. So if you're having trouble with the upstrom, don't worry. You are not the only one in this video. We're going to talk about how to kind of break this down. Now, the thing I think where people go wrong is they think they can play the up strums as fast as they're playing their down strums. And I would recommend slowing things down. So usually I'll start people off with a simple pattern. Something like 1, 2, and 3, 4. 1, 2, 2, and 3, 4. Which we would strum as down, down, up, down, down, down, down, up, down, down. So it would sound like this, down.
Down, up, down, down, down, down, up, down, down.
Now, for some of my students, that's too much. They can't do that. So we break.
So what I first get them to do is just play the first half of the pattern, and we just really focus on getting the timing of that strum. And we go very slow.
We go down, down, up, and that's it. One, two, and one, two, and one, two,. And.
That's it. That's all we'll do.
One, two, and.
And again.
Down, down, up.
Then what we'll do is then we'll add in the other down.
So it'll be down, down, up, down, down, down, down, up, down, down.
One more time.
Down, down, up, down, down.
Now, if you're saying, hey, I'm having trouble and I can't even play along with you right now, slow it down even more. Even slower. Like ridiculously slow.
1, 2 and.
1, 2.
And that up is just a little bit quicker.
Down, down, up, down, down, up, down, down, up.
And then add the downs back in.
Down, down, up, down, down. 1, 2, and 3, 4. Again, 1, 2, and 3, four.
And you can do this with any pattern. You can put that up strum between any beat. You could do it after the 1.
1 and 2, 3, 4. 2, 3, 4.
And if that's too much for you, just start with the 1 and 1.
And 1 and 1 and.
And then add the two back in.
1 and 2, 1 and 2, 1 and 2.
Then try the whole thing.
1 and 2, 3, 4. Down, up, down, down, down.
Once you get a feel for it, then you can start playing very fast if you want to.
One, two.
I think most people start at that speed, and it doesn't give your brain time to process the actual timing of the up strum. Another exercise you can do to work on the up strum is just to practice doing up strums by themselves.
Up, up, up, up.
While the down strum for almost everyone I've taught tends to be very natural, the up strum is not. So just practicing doing up strums.
Is beneficial. And people ask me, hey, am I trying to get all the strings on an up strum? A down strum, you'll probably get all the strings of a chord on the up strum. You might not get all the strings on the way up. That's why the up strum has somewhat of a tinnier, brighter sound versus a down strum, which has a more bassy sound. That's how when you listen to music, you can tell the difference. You can literally hear the difference between a downstrom and an up strum. So let's go back to that first rhythm. 1, 2, and 3, 4. And sometimes what I'll tell people to do is put the pick down and put it in a place where it's not going to fall. I'll put it in my guitar and I'll tell them to clap the rhythm, and I'll just say, put the pick away. We're not even going to play the guitar. And we're going to clap, and it's going to be one, two and three, four. One, two and three, four. 1, 2 and 3, 4. And then we'll bring it over to the guitar. Another thing that helps, I mean, I'm a singer, so I love to sing everything. So if you can even hum or sing the pattern.
1, 2 and 3, 4.
1, 2 and 3, four. I firmly believe that if you can sing something, you can play it. So if you can get that rhythm, if you can get it, you can clap it, you can sing it. Then bring it back to the guitar and be like, all right, I'm gonna sing over this. Or I'm at least gonna. I'm not really singing. I'm kind of talking, but I'm gonna talk over this or do whatever. So we got 2, 3, 4.
1, 2, and 3, 4. 1, 2,. And 3, 4.
So the key is getting the time timing under. Under your belt, but also going slow enough to give your brain time to process. So that's how I work in up strums with my students. We start with just one up strum at a time. And usually I just start them on.
1, 2, and 1, 2, and 3, 4. 1, 2, and 3, four. 1, 2.
And then we add the other strums.
1, 2, and 3rd, four. 1, 2, and three, four. 1, 2, 3, 4.
But you definitely gotta work your way up to it. And that, like I said, is how I work on up strums with students. If you're looking for more stuff on various strumming patterns, I do a lot of strumming in my beginner guitar course. So if you want to pop over to laurenbateman.com you can check out the beginner guitar course. I do tons of different strumming patterns in that course. Different eighth note patterns, different quarter note patterns. Really gives you a solid foundation on strumming, especially if you're looking to play songs and make them sound a little bit cooler, a little bit more fun, and a little bit more exciting. So thank you so much for watching this lesson, and I'll see you guys in the next video.
