The First Country Strum Pattern to Learn on Guitar

Hey guitar enthusiasts, Lauren Bateman here, and in this video I'm going to teach you the quintessential old-style country strum. But there's a very important thing we have to learn to do with our bass notes on our chords. So if you think of old-school country, or when I think of old-style country, I think of something like this. Okay, got kind of like the— we call it almost like this boom-chuck feel, okay? Because we got a boom, which comes from the bass note of our chord, and this chuck, which comes from the strum section of our chord. So how do we do that? Let's talk about it step by step in this video. All right, so first I'm going to show you very, very simple how to do what I just showed you. And then I'm gonna give you a little extra spice if you want to go a little bit further. But to start off, we're just going to do a very, very simple boom-chuck pattern. So what are we doing? All right, we're basically doing 2 down strums. We have a 1, and then on the and we have a strum. Okay, so we're going to be using an eighth note rhythm. If you don't know rhythm yet, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and— that's how we count it, what we call eighth note rhythms. There's 8 potential strums we could do. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. Okay, and in this particular case, the 1, 2, 3, and 4 are going to be a bass note, which I will show you shortly, and then the ands are going to be a strum. Okay, we're going to be strumming down. Okay, so what do I mean? So it'll sound like this: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Okay, so you're gonna hear a bass note, and then there's gonna be a strum. So we need to talk about first which bass drum do we use, or which bass note for each chord. Okay, so if you have a 6-string chord, we're talking G chords, we're talking E minor, E major, even if you're playing an F barre chord. Okay, if you're a beginner, you're probably not doing that, but mostly G chords, E minor, E major. Okay, if you're playing a 5-string chord, we're going to consider that a C chord, A minor, A major. Okay, um, F major 7 play easier F chord. And then our 4-string chords like a D chord, a D minor, D7, okay? All those are 4-string chords. So if you're playing a 6-string chord, the bass note is going to be the 6th string, okay? Think of how many chords you need to play, or how many strings you need to play a chord. That's the bass note, the lowest note, 6, okay? So on a G chord, it's going to be this low E, which is the G string. On a C chord, it's going to be the 5th string. On the D chord D chord— if I play the right chord, it's going to be the D string, 4th string. So if it's a 6-string chord, the bass note is the 6th string. If it is a 5-string chord, the bass note is going to be the 5th string. And if it is a 4-string chord, the bass note is going to be the 4th string. Okay, so if I take a G chord, it's going to be bass note, strum, bass note, strum. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. If I take a C chord, it's going to be 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. And then a D chord, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Okay, so I'm doing bass strum, bass strum. That is the basis of this pattern. So So what I want to do is I just want to work on going through that same pattern— G, C, D— very slowly, working on the strumming pattern. And by the way, if you don't know who I am, I know I introduced myself earlier. My name is Lauren Bateman. I specialize in helping older adults ages 50+ learn to play guitar and have fun with cool strumming patterns and simple things like this fun little country pattern. And we're going to apply this to a song at the end. Um, so this way, at the end of this lesson, you'll be able to use this strumming pattern in an actual song, which is fun. So what we're going to do again, we're going to go G, C, D. Okay, and I'm just going to go very slowly. 1 and 2 and. When I say the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, we're going to play the bass note. Then we're going to try the bass note, bass note for each chord. And then it's going to be bass, strum, bass, strum, bass, strum. Okay, and that's the speed we're gonna start at, nice and slow. Okay, give you time to find— change your chords, find your spot. Okay, so here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4. Bass, strum, bass, strum, bass, strum. Do the G again. Bass, strum, bass, strum, bass, strum. Okay, we're gonna do the C chord twice now. 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. D chord. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Very, very good. That is the foundation. Of this rhythm. But there's an important part that I didn't mention to you yet because I didn't want you thinking about it just yet, um, is letting that bass note ring out. So some of you might be playing the bass note and then strumming the whole chord again. All right, so the essence of this strumming pattern is we want that bass note to ring out. Okay, so now that you have the timing— I let you practice the timing— now you can focus on the bass note. Because if I tell you to focus on the bass note first, you're going to focus on that instead of the timing. So So now what I want you to do is really focus on trying not to hit that bass note again. So don't go and strum the whole chord. Now what we're going to do is we're going to focus on the bass note and maybe strumming the bottom 3 or 4 strings. And when you get to a D chord, it's going to be tough to maybe just get those bottom 3, but do as best you can. Okay, so now we're going to do the same thing. Okay, we're going to play each chord twice, but I really want you to focus on trying to let that bass ring out this time. Okay, let's do it again. Here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4. All right, great. Now let's try and pick the pace up just a little bit. All right, so we're just going to pick up the speed just a little bit. Same thing, G, C, D. We're not changing anything about our chord progression or chord changes. We're just going to pick up the speed. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Okay, if it's still too fast, you can use the settings clock to slow me down, but let's give it a try a little faster speed now. So we got 1, 2, 3, 4, bass drum, bass drum, bass drum. Here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. You got it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3. Do it again, Ready? 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, and on G. Now before I jump into teaching you a song and applying this to a song, some of you, when I sped it up, you might have felt a little stressed, a little rushed. That's totally normal. You just might not be at that speed quite yet, and that's why I picked a slower song for us to do on the song example here. But understand, you're a beginner, you are just learning. It is natural for things maybe to be a little bit slower, not sound as good. And that's why I said earlier, I really specialize in working with, with older adults All right, sometimes we just have to go a little bit slower in the beginning, okay? Because our hands, they don't quite work the way they did when we were in our 20s and 30s. And I'm getting into my 40s and I can already see it. I'm like, they just don't quite work the same sometimes. So I can imagine if you're 70 or you're 80 and you're trying to learn guitar, your hands just might move a little bit slower than you want them to. And that's totally normal. Even if someone was in their 20s and 30s, this is a whole new mechanic. So be a little patient with yourself, give yourself some grace. It's okay if you need to pause the video and take your time and slow down. That's totally normal. That's perfectly fine. All right, I want you to learn at your speed, not my speed. Okay, because this is your guitar journey, it's not my guitar journey. So what we're going to do now is I'm going to take you through the big one verse of a song. All right, I picked up I Walk the Line by Johnny Cash. Great song. Johnny Cash really, really uses these cool, these cool strumming patterns. And then what I'm going to do after that, if you were interested, I mentioned I was going to show you a little extra spice at the end. I'm going to show you a boom chaka pattern, which you can apply to songs as well, which is also super fun. So for this song, and the notes are on my website laurenbateman.com, we're going to be using an E chord, an A chord, and a D chord. Okay, so it's going to be E-A-E-A-D-A-E-A. Okay. And we'll do a first couple— do a couple verses so that you have something to play along with. Again, if this is too fast, use the settings cog to slow me down. This is the speed we're going to go to, slow speed. Okay, this is not a fast song. We could make it fast if we want to, but I think that's a pretty good speed. Okay, and if your chord changes aren't that fast, start changing on the 3. Okay, just play along with me, jump in where you can. Here we go. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Let's start on the E. Okay, let's just get that tempo. 3 and 4 and. All right, ready? Here we go.

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep I keep my eyes wide open all the time. I keep the ends out for the ties that bind. Because you're mine, I walk the line. I find it very easy to be true. I find myself alone when each day is through. Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you. Because you're mine, I walk the line.

All right, very quickly, that little spice I said I was going to show you at the end here.

So if I were playing this song, I might do something like, keep a close watch on this heart of mine, I keep my eyes wide open all the time.

So this is what we call like more of a boom-chucka. So there's an extra strum, there's just one additional strum, and obviously it's playing a little bit faster. But all we're going to do is take that boom-chuck that you already learned, 1 and, and we're going to add a little up strum on the end. So it's going to be down, up, bass, down, up, bass, down, up, bass, down, up, bass, down, up. So it's actually what we call a 16th note. The count for this, if you're interested, would be 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a. So basically it's exactly what you learned, 1 and 2 and, just there's a little up. That's why it's called Boom Chucka. So we have boom chuck, boom chuck, boom chuck, boom chuck, boom chuck, boom chucka boom chakka boom chakka boom chaka boom chuck boom chuck boom chuck boom chuck boom chucka boom chakka boom chakka boom! So see, by taking things slow and just going through them step-by-step you can learn a strumming pattern and then be able to apply it to something musical at the very end. And that's very important when learning the guitar, is not to rush things, to take your time and learn things step by step in the proper order. Okay, and sometimes with YouTube that can be a little bit tricky because they're going to suggest videos and you're not sure, especially if you're an absolute beginner, you're not sure if the next video is the right video for you. And that's why I created my 7-Level Guitar System uh, specifically designed for helping older adults learn to play guitar. Even if you've never touched the guitar before, I teach you all the foundation items— how to hold, how to use your guitar strap, how to hold the pick properly, tune the guitar. And even if you're someone's like, hey, I know some chords, but my strumming really isn't great, my timing— I really like the strumming here. We work on strumming exercises in the course as well. But basically, it's a step-by-step program that teaches you all the fundamentals, all of the strumming, the picking, especially the hand dexterity stuff. Because I mentioned this, like, if you're an older adult, your hands don't quite work as well or as quickly as they used to. So we do a lot of exercises to help rebuild the hand, rebuild the strength, the dexterity, the flexibility to make playing the guitar in general a lot more comfortable. But I've had thousands of students go through this program now. Going from playing absolutely nothing on the guitar to playing songs that they know and love, like a Johnny Cash song or a John Denver song or CCR or Eric Clapton. Whatever your favorite artist is, you can apply these techniques to the music you know and love, and you can do it in a simple step-by-step process in my 7 Level Guitar System. So if you're interested in checking that out, I'll put a link below this video. I'd love to see you there, and I hope to see you in another lesson video real soon.