Struming Patterns for Guitar: Lesson 1

Hey gang, Scott here with another free video lesson here on my blog at ScottPerryMusician.com. So far a lot of these lessons have been geared towards intermediate or maybe advanced students, and I thought it'd be nice to do some lessons that were geared more towards beginning and rising intermediate students. And I have a couple of students that I taught this material to just this last week, Alina and David, and it brought to mind that maybe this would be something that more of my own students would find useful. But if you're taking lessons from somebody else, obviously you're welcome to this material. So here we go, we're going to talk about strumming patterns for beginning and intermediate guitar players. We're going to start with a very simple and very familiar chord sequence, which is G to C, G to D7, and we're going to put that into 4/4 time, common time, which just means 4 beats per measure. And we're gonna start with what's called a quarter note strum, which is simply downstrokes. 1, 2, 3, 4. The only thing the right hand has to be worried about is how many strings it's hitting on any given chord. So the G is all 6 strings, the C is 5, the D7 is 4. And if I were to strum through the entire sequence, it would sound like this: G, 2, 3, 4, to C, 2, 3, 4, back to G, and then to D7, 2, 3. Now, this is a really effective way of learning a new chord progression, a new chord sequence, or trying to navigate your way through the chords through an entire song. And just really, because the right hand doesn't have much to worry about, you're really just thinking about how the left hand is going to navigate its way through the changes. It's great technique for memorizing chord progressions or chord sequences through a song. And again, just getting the mechanics of the left hand down, maybe the right hand too, to an extent, in terms of getting the right number of strings. But after a while, that will start to feel like it's kind of simplistic and maybe not that much fun to play. So then maybe the next step would be to employ what's called an eighth note strumming pattern, which just means that in addition to playing these strong beats, the numbered beats: 1, 2, 3, 4. We're gonna play the unaccented beats, the "and" in between each numbered beat, which sounds like this: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Now that upstroke is fundamentally different than the downstroke. The downstroke is going to be down and into the guitar through the strings involved in the chord, but the upstroke is kind of up and away from the guitar, and it's only gonna involve the treble strings— first, second, maybe first, second, third strings. What you don't want to have happen is what's called a rake, where you're going— that technique can have its applications, but playing an entire chord progression or sequence of chords or an entire chorus of a song with that kind of rake strum would sound really kind of bizarre. So what's going to happen is we're going to hit down and into the guitar and then up and away. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Going through the entire sequence, it's going to sound like this.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 2 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 3 and 2 and 3 and 4 and And 4 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

So that sounds pretty good, but again, once that's mastered, it— that might start to sound a little bit boring, maybe not be that much fun to play anymore. So then we can make it a little bit more interesting by simply adding what's called a rest stroke. And we're going to add the rest stroke on beats 2 and 4. And a rest means a period of silence. In order to have silence, we're going to have to actually stop the ringing of the strings with our right hand like this, with the heel of our hand, so that we get this. Now again, the rest stroke does not mean just don't strum, because obviously the strings are still ringing. The rest implies silence. So from the side, again, just on that G chord, it's going to look like this. Okay, through the sequence, the eighth note strum with the rest stroke will sound like this: 1 and rest, 3 and rest, rest, 3 and rest, G and rest, and D7. Okay, now we're ready for what I think is kind of the most universally taught first real strumming pattern. That a beginning guitar player will use, and it's going to sound like this: down, down, up, up, down. With a count: 1, 2, and, and 4. Now if you look at my right hand, it looks like I'm just doing an eighth note strum. What's happening is I'm controlling when my pick comes into contact with the strings. It comes in contact with the strings on the 1, it misses them on the and of 1, comes down again on the 2, and then on the and of 2, misses it on the downstroke of 3, but on the upstroke we come into contact, and then again on 4. So again, it's— I could count an eighth note strum: 1, I'm sorry, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. But I'm only coming into contact again 1, 2, and, and 4. 1, 2, and, and 4. So again, from the side: 1, 2, and, and 4. 1, 2, and, and 4. So you see that sometimes my hand almost is doing like the circular movement. 2, and, and 4. And that's a little bit exaggerated. Your body will find a way of kind of intuitively and naturally playing these strumming patterns that sound good at the same time. I'm just giving you the very basic information here, but through the entire sequence, this is the way that pattern would sound.

G, C, G, D7. 1, 2, and, and 4, 1, 2, and, and 4, 1, 2, and, and 4. 1, 2, and, and 4.

So maybe that sounded really familiar, and it should. It's the strumming pattern used in dozens or hundreds of songs in the key of G. But to me, it always reminds me of the beginning of the song Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison, which starts with that 4-chord sequence, and it starts with a strumming pattern that's very similar to that. So you could get online and get some changes to Van Morrison's tune there and start playing it immediately with that strumming pattern. But you could take all these ideas— the quarter note strum, the eighth note strum, the eighth note strum with the rest, uh, and then this strumming pattern that I've just introduced— the down, down, up, up, down, or 1, 2, and, and 4— and apply it to any songs that you're playing in 4/4 time in the key of G. It makes— strumming patterns are just a way of getting into playing rhythm guitar in a way that's a little bit more fun, a little bit more engaging, and a little bit more interesting for both yourself, your bandmates, and your audience. So have fun with that material. I hope it's been useful. Please leave a comment down below and let me know what you think of these free lessons. If you have an idea for a new lesson series, just drop me a line, let me know what it is, and I'll get to it in the next series. And obviously, if you're looking for guitar lessons and you want to explore guitar lessons with me, I teach face-to-face here in Floyd, Virginia, but also have online options. Just go to ScottPerryMusician.com and drop me an email. That will start the process. There'll be a free consultation. We'll talk a little bit about my approach and come up with a plan that will get you to achieve your musical goals just as quickly as possible. But regardless of whether or not I see you in a lesson anytime soon, I hope that you are playing your guitar every day. I hope that you're having fun, and we'll look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks a lot.