Top 5 Tips For Learning Strumming Patterns - LIVE with Lauren Bateman

All right, we're back. I see my microphone working. Unfortunately, I'm in the room next door. So this will not be an hd, but the content, I promise, will be amazing. So, good morning. Thank you for working through the technical difficulties today. I'm going to be going through some specific tips for strumming and learning strumming. And even if you're like, Lauren, I'm pretty good at strumming, um, there's some tips at the end that a lot of people don't think about in terms of taking their strumming to the next level. So I wanted to share those with you today. And I also have two very special announcements at the end of today's live. So please stick around. Stick through the end. I'm going to share some exciting news that's going on in the world of Lauren. Hello, Jerry. Hello, Madeline. Welcome, welcome. So let's get started. Okay, so first tip, tip number one is take your time. Okay. I have a lot of students who will learn a strumming pattern, and then they try to go fast. Too fast. All right, so if we take our fun little strumming pattern, let's take, like, the down, down, up, up, down, up. One, two, and. And four. Because I know it's a popular strumming pattern, but for some people, it can throw them for a loop. And. And a lot of times they want to do this. They want to go.

You know, which is great. We all want to get to that point, but sometimes. So we call this a syncopated rhythm. So syncopated rhythm is when you do not have a downstrom on the numbers 1, the number 2, the number 3, or the number 4. So in this particular pattern, we have two upstroms in a row, which, you know, if you've never done that before, throws a lot of people for a loop. Okay, so how would I practice this? Well, first, I would go slow, and I would break it up into two sections. Okay, so this is step one, just going slow. So I. You know, I got my bright G chord here. You can just use a regular G chord. And I would just start by going. What's the first half of the pattern? It's one, two, and. Okay. Down, down, up. Great.

Down, down, up.

Good.

Down, down, up.

Again.

Down, down, up.

One more time.

Down, down, up.

Great. So that's the first half of the pattern. You might be like, okay, I can do that. Great. The second half of the pattern is up, down, up. Great.

Up, down, up.

Again.

Up, down, up.

Awesome. One more time.

Up, down, up.

And you're like, great. Those two things separately are fine. But then when we go to put them together, it sometimes falls apart because we have those two ups and a lot of people, they'll go down, down, and then, like, they get stuck doing that next step. So the thing is slow it down. And when I say slow it down, I talk about Walkman slow. So when I was growing up, the Walkman was very popular. And I know for some of you, you're like, well, I had Lauren, we had other things. We had eight track and other things before Walkman's, but, you know, you had the record players, the cool stuff. So I had a Walkman growing up. And when the battery would die, or if you had a toy and the battery would die.

It would start going very, very slow until it completely died. Right? That's how slow your strumming has to go. So it has to be. So we go to put this together, which is down, down, up, up, down, up. I would play it this slow.

Down, down, up.

Up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up.

You can even go slower than that. But that's Walkman slow. A lot of people don't want to go that slow because we all want to go.

Okay, but that's too fast to learn a strumming pattern and what it does by slowing down. When we have difficult strumming patterns, we're learning by slowing down. It gives our brain enough time to process. Lex says, I remember that. Good. I'm not alone. Gracie says, lauren, you're the best guitar teacher. Thank you so much. You are so welcome. I appreciate that. I don't know if I'm the best, but I'm glad that my teaching style works for you. I know there's so many teachers here on YouTube, and it's so important for me as a teacher, it's not important that you, that you work with me. It's important that you find the right teacher that speaks your language and someone that you can understand and helps you. You make sense. So if I'm that person for you, awesome. I am. I'm so happy to be that person for you. So, number one, take it slow. That's tip number one. Slow things down. Walkman slow. To give your brain enough time to think about it. Then number two, really learn the pattern. Okay, so what we're going to do, we're going to go Walkman slow, and then we're not going to work on changing chords yet. The first tip is just to learn the pattern. You might need to play this pattern a thousand times. 2,000 times, 3,000 times for you to get it in your muscle memory. All right? So again, I would start Walkman. Slow.

Down, down, up, up, down, up, down.

Okay? And when you start getting a feel for it, then you can start picking up the speed, all right? To a point, because you'll know when you're going too fast, because this strumming hand is going to start tensing up on you. So slow it down again and speed it up. So it's just a process of finding the balance of where your hand is relaxed. So look at my wrist. See how my wrist. Your hand should be like a whip, okay? So your wrist is going to do a lot of this, okay? If your hand looks like this when you're strumming, it means you are tensing too much in the forearm. You're probably death gripping the pick. Okay? So relax. All right? Your hand needs to do this. It just needs to drop. There is no weight to my hand. Okay? So you see, when I strum, my wrist just kind of hangs. So that's what we want to find, the point.

Where you can strum this pattern comfortably and your wrist isn't doing this, and you're not having to think about it. You know when you'll think about it? One, you might smell some smoke. Smoke. But two, because you're gonna feel the bandwidth. You're gonna feel the pull on your brain. And once the strumming powder becomes comfortable, you can. You can do what I'm doing. You can sit there and have a conversation with someone. It's second nature. So that's tip number two, is learn the pattern. Step number one, go very, very slow. Step number two, get the pattern into your bones. Once you have done that, you. You move on to step number three, okay? Which is you're going to put that strumming pattern in a chord progression. Okay? So now we're adding another element. People do this too soon. They start putting this strumming pattern into a song and into a chord progression. And that adds another element of thought, all right? And remember, our brain only has so much bandwidth when we're learning new things. Okay? Someone says a pick with grip return. Oh, yeah, there's picks that. I don't have one here. They're called max grip grip picks, and they almost feel like cardboard. And they're really good picks that hold on to. You can't. You can't even pull them out of your ham. So if you have trouble gripping your pick, that's a great option, those max grip picks. All right, so now chord Progression. First, we're just going to start on one chord with this strumming pattern. Okay?

Up, down, up.

Then we're going to put it to a chord progression. So I'm just going to do G, E minor, C and D. So we got G. We'll do it for two chords, two measures, E minor.

Okay? This way you get some time to think about the chord change. C and then back to D. Okay? And you're like, all right, great. That was pretty good. Now we're going to do one measure. It's going to be G, D minor to C.

Now, for some people.

That'S going to be troublesome because there could be two things that are going on. One, it's too much information to your brain to process. Two, you didn't learn the strumming pattern as well as you thought you did. And then there's a third element. For some of you, those chord changes aren't quite fast enough. So the strumming might start sounding like this.

Okay?

That happens for a lot of students. You're still learning your chords and learning to switch. So my recommendation on that is you can only go as fast as your slowest chord change. Okay. When you're working on an exercise like this, if your fastest chord change is 60 beats per minute, and I teach people this in my seven level system, we work on speed drills in the program. So if 60 beats per minute is the fastest you can go, then that's as fast as you can strum.

Because we want to keep those chords transition smooth. Okay? I'd rather slow and smooth than fast and choppy. Okay? So review step number one, go slow. Step number two, learn the pattern. Just stick on one chord and really ingrain it in your muscle memory. Step number three, which we just did, use it in a chord progression. Okay? Step number four, this is something I don't think a lot of people do. I force people to do it in my program. But a lot of people do this. Mix it up with another strumming pattern. Okay? So a lot of times when we learn songs, when we're beginners, you know, I'll teach you one strumming pattern. We'll use that strumming pattern from the beginning all the way to the end. Right? That's not usually how songs are played. Some of them are. There are some that. That's how it works. But for a lot of songs, you might do a different strumming pattern for the verse and a different strumming pattern for the chorus. So you actually have to get comfortable with not Only knowing this strumming pattern, but changing in and out of it. All right? And this is where some people are like, oh, I haven't practiced this before. So what we're going to do is we're going to take that strumming pattern.

Down, down, up, up, down, up, and.

We'Re going to Change it into 1, 2, and 3, and 4. So down, down, up, down, up, down.

So it's going to be down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, up, down.

Okay. If that felt comfortable, then I would maybe add a third one on top of it and then a fourth one. So that.

One measure strumming pattern, one measure. Now, typically that wouldn't happen that you would get, you know, four measures in a row being a different pattern, but you might get two or three. Okay. There's a lot of songs where they use what we call two measure strumming patterns, where one measure is one pattern, the second measure is a different pattern, and then it repeats. Okay. So once you know a pattern, you want to block it, sandwich it in between a different pattern to make sure, one, that your timing is spot on. And two, again, do you know these strumming patterns as well as you think you do? And three, is your timing as good as you think it is? Okay. Because it's easy. And I don't want to say easy. It's easy to do a strumming pattern all by itself in a vacuum. But when you start applying it to a song and you start moving it through different patterns and other patterns, it can throw you for a limp if you've never practiced that before. Okay. So these are things you want to incorporate into your practice. And tip number five for improving your strumming. Because I get people, they're like, they get through 1, 2, 3, 4, and then they get, you know, kind of towards the end of my program, and they're like, lauren, this has been great. I love your program. It's awesome. I've learned so much. I went from not being able to play any songs, and now I can play like 25 different songs or 30 songs. This is great. But now I feel like I'm doing the same strumming pattern over and over and over again. And I do have programs that come after the seven level. But the biggest thing I find with students is they stay in their comfort zone so they don't venture out and learn songs that use different strumming patterns. Okay. So at Some point, you're gonna have to venture beyond the beginning. So in my course, you know, and I can't teach songs in my course, but, you know, I use YouTube. That's YouTube. Helps me with. I'll say, hey, you just learned this skill. Go over to YouTube now and learn this song. So everything's step by step. But one of the first songs we learned is Horse was no Name. Okay, so Horse was on Name, very simply is.

You know, four strums, right?

Two chords, four strums, and you got four straight with no name. But the real Horse with no Name. And so I tell people to do at the end, now that you've learned all these skills, go back and relearn Horse with no Name. But learn it as.

Okay. It's a lot different. It sounds a lot more. It sounds a lot more like Horse with no Name. And that's what happens with students sometimes is they stick to the simple stuff. And one, they never go back to make it harder. Okay? They never go back and say, okay, let me see if I can make this song harder or maybe I can play it more like the original. Because a lot of students that's like, yeah, it doesn't sound like the original song. You know, how do I make it sound more like the song? And part of it is you have to develop your strumming skills a little bit further, more into the intermediate level. But two, you have to seek out songs that use different strumming patterns and really expose yourself to as many strumming patterns as possible. And, you know, if you're someone right now that is struggling a little bit with the basics, a little bit with the timing, like, I got some strumming patterns, but my timing is still. Is still off. You know, we do a lot of that stuff in my seven level program. And that's one of these special announcements I wanted to make. Now, they're about 14 minutes in here. So I do have. Everyone's been asking, everyone's been waiting. I do have a Memorial Day special going on. I actually pinned a link over in the chat over there for my seven level system, which is my beginner guitar program. All right. It's. It's 297, which you like, Lauren, but that's. That's not a sale. You get my finger picking course. I just fully updated my finger picking course. So it's got. I think I added like an additional eight lessons to it. So it's a bigger course and it's brand new. So it's got like the two. The two Camera angles and everything. So you get the newly updated finger picking course, which is one of my most popular courses. You also get my workshop on how to hear strumming in music, because people ask me that all the time. Like, Lauren, I'm listening to a song, how do I know what the strumming pattern is like? I can't hear it yet. So we work on some ear training and some stuff for that. So for you to be able to hear strumming and music. And you're going to get access to my community. So the links over there or it's below the video in the description below, if you're interested in that. Memorial Day special is good now through May 30th. So just as that's. That's the first, I have a second big announcement. But that's the first big announcement is that I do have a little Memorial Day promotion going on. Gracie says, I don't know what will happen if I don't find a great guitar teacher like you. Oh, thanks. Let's see, I see a question here. What are your thoughts on how to use a metronome for strumming and chord changes? Great question. So going back to that was tip number three. So what you would do is again, I would find my fastest chord change. And let's see, let me get a metronome here. So I'm. I'm gonna do 60, because I mentioned 60 earlier. So let's just go, that's a fairly decent chord, you know, change speed. All right, so you can hear my little click. Okay, that's my metronome. So it's 1, 2, 3, 4. And if I were going to put that strumming pattern in over it, it.

Would be down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up.

Up.

Now, if I'm going to throw in that second or I was going to throw a chord change over it, that's the timing. All right. So first, set your metronome. So this is 60 beats per minute. Find your strumming pattern. And I will admit, with a metronome. Let me just shut that off for a second. I will admit with a metronome, it is much harder to keep timing when you go slower versus faster. So challenge yourself to do that. I find working with students and making them go slow with the metronome really helps to work on their timing because you really have to be spot on. It's much easier to have good timing when you go fast, but when you slow it down, you'll know the good players from the bad players. Like, I used to work with the drummer and all of the slow songs, like, he would speed them up. He couldn't maintain a slow tempo. So. So work at slow speeds because it does help. All right, so I'm going to bump it up to 70 just to speed things up a little bit. So we got one, two, oh, my one accents. And one, two, and three and four.

And down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up, up.

So you can hear the timing on that metronome. Up, down, up, down, down, up.

Now, the key is, can you play.

Slow without the metronome.

And maintain that rhythm or that tempo? That's really difficult, especially at. At slower paces. So that's what I would do. If I were working on a strumming pattern first. I would set the metronome and I would just listen for the beats. And you saw me using my fingers. I was counting it out. So I visually, I have the auditory clicking of the metronome. I also have the visual of my fingers moving. Okay, so I'm also working on timing here. I'm not on the guitar, but just by doing this, you're working on timing because you have to move those fingers in the right time. And then I would find my strumming pattern within that click. Okay. And if you need to write it down on a piece of paper, you know, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. And you write down your strumming pattern. Like, do that. Whatever helps you to. To understand. Do that. Whatever works best for you. Jennifer, is it Jean Francois or Jean? Jean Francois? I'm guessing Lauren will be available in French for Belgium in the future. We haven't translated the program yet. I think we were going to work on doing a Spanish version first, but French could also be on there as well. I think we're going to start doing that towards the end of this year. Try translating in some different languages for people who want it. Great question. Are your courses primary acoustic? Nearly all I see are for electric, which I don't play. Hi, Tommy. Yeah, so my guitar, I play acoustic only in the course. It is. It's. It's beginner stuff. You know, it's beginner kind of to late beginner, early intermediate. So really, if you were acoustic or electric, you could use it. But just like my channel, most of my videos here, I'm on the acoustic in that program. I just use my acoustic guitar. So it would be a perfect fit for you. I've learned so much from you. Oh, you're so welcome. Thanks, Mandy. I appreciate that. Oh, Billy from London.

Hello.

I love London. I was there last year almost this time, I think about this time of year I was in London. It might have actually been early May, but yes, I had so much fun there. Great, great place. We really enjoyed it. Reminds us a lot of Boston. Although you have much nicer gardens than we do. We enjoyed walking in the gardens and we had some decent weather there. Oh, Jerry says she's the best. You won't go wrong with her courses. I'm 66 years old, disabled vet that thought I would never play a song with one of the best teachers I know. Way to go, Lauren. Oh, Jerry. Well, first off, thank you for your service. Appreciate that. And so happy to have helped you learn to play a song. Do you also teach skills in riffs? That is a great question, Lisa. So in truth, that is not my specialty. I really am more of an acoustic rhythm guitar player, but big. But I have teamed up with a teacher who, who works in my programs and he's in my community. His name is Charlie and we've. We've done some courses together and he's actually in the process of releasing his lead guitar 102 course which has. It teaches you all about scales. I do have a lead guitar 101 program which kind of starts you with the basics. But if you really wanted to get into to riffs and licks, that's more Charlie's domain than my domain. Great question.

52 from Nottingham, UK. Hello. Hello. We have rain if you want some. No, it's been raining here all week. I finally saw some sunshine on my window. I'm up here. So I'm on like the third floor and everything. Let me see if I can turn my camera. You can kind of see so everything. Oh, you can't really see out the window. Well, you can see the trees. So off in the distance there, there are some mountains. I can't see them as well now because of the trees are in bloom, but it's kind of like a dreary day here today. Gray clouds. But it's been raining all week and I. Hopefully we're supposed to have some sunshine the next couple days. So please keep the rain, Billy. Please keep the rain.

So. So that was announcement number one and I took some questions. But announcement number one, I do have a Memorial Day special going on. The link is below this video and I think I pinned it in the chat here it is a special offer on. On my seven level. I don't do this very often, so if you want to grab that? Go ahead, grab that today. It's good through Friday of next week, which is May 30, or it goes away at midnight on, you know, May 31. So make sure. If you're interested in that, go check it out. Get it this week. Announcement number two. And I just started doing this. I actually was talking to a manufacturer yesterday. So, as you know, I specialize in. In working with older adults who want to learn to play guitar. So basically, you know, age 50 up and, you know, my back's hurting every morning, so maybe like age 40 up, but I specialize in working with older adults because I know as we get older and we age, we get different ailments. Like, you know, our joints aren't as flexible as they used to be. Our fingers don't work as fast as they used to. I have a number of students who are disabled, like Jerry said earlier. I have a number of students who have arthritis. I have students who are missing fingers. Okay. And we try to work with them as best as possible because it's very unique situations, and we can't rush the process. And that's why my 7 level is designed to work with an older adult. And the reason is we do things a little bit more methodically. We go a little bit slower. I teach some easy chords first. We really work on the hand and finger dexterity a lot because I know. Know we need to build the strength in the hands, and we just need to get those fingers moving again. Because I know, you know, if you're someone, especially if you're getting into your 70s and 80s, you know, your fingers, you know, you might not be able to do this stuff as fast as you used to when you're in your 30s or your 40s. So I have been talking with manufacturers because I want to start making some guitar products specifically for you. Specifically for you. And. And one of the first products that we're looking into and researching is we're actually going to be working on a guitar strap that is one easy to get on and off the guitar. So if you have arthritis. I don't have. Where's my other. Oh, I think my other strap is downstairs. So you'll see. Let me show you my tailor here. I don't know if you can see it. Let's see. Where is it? I have a gouge in it. I don't know if you'll be able to see it. Well, you can't. The dark. The dark wood doesn't help. So I was using my guitar. I had a Leather strap on my guitar. This one connects in the back. And what happened? The leather, over time, gets so stretched out that the strap came off the button and it fell. Boom, right on my desk. And it put a dent, fortunately, on the underside of my guitar. But I was very sad when that happened. So I want to create guitar straps that are one easy to get on and off. Like this guitar strap I'm wearing, I had to take a screwdriver to my peg to get it off. It was on so tight, I was like, there's no way if I had a student that had arthritis that they would ever be able to get this guitar strap off. Okay. I also want it to be easy to adjust. All right? And I want it to be padded and wide enough so that it doesn't dig into your shoulders, because that's a number one complaint I get from students is I bought a guitar strap, and sometimes they'll buy a nice leather strap, and. And it's just not right. It's not wide enough, it's not thick enough, and it starts digging into their shoulder. Especially if you have a heavy electric that can really, really dig into your shoulder. I had a student who told me that this particular strap, and I won't say the brand name and what it is, love the strap, digs into the shoulder. It's a nice leather strap, but it locks in place. But the downside with this one is the lock is backwards. So my button on my acoustic is back here. So now I have a twisted strap in the back. So I've been doing a lot of research on different guitar straps. I've bought a number, I've ordered more, and I started talking with the manufacturing company yesterday. I'm actually interviewing manufacturing companies right now because I want to create products that help my older students just. Just enjoy the process more. So when you have a guitar strap that's digging into your shoulder after 15 minutes of practice, it doesn't want to make you practice a lot. All right? And it can take a lot of the enjoyment. I know for some of you, particularly, like, my dad has rheumatoid arthritis. So I know for him, like, a good day is when he can get out of bed and, like, move, you know, like. Like his. His hands work and, like, he's not in serious pain. So I know a good day for him is when he can get up and he can kind of do the normal things that he used to be able to do, and that's a good day for him. If he can do that, that's a great day. But I also know his bad days.