[kaneashiru1]

I've a problem guys.. I've been learning the guitar for a few months now... I play a mean lead, ie. I can do hammer-on's, pull-off's, tremolo, sliding techniques and some double tapping on my crappy steel stringed acoustic... An I can even get it up to about 120bpm....

My problem's quite simple, but"mind-boggling" as my friend put it... I can play good lead.. But I've very little skills when it comes to strumming techniques... Any tips anyone? I've got the finger transitions down but the strumming technique's really shaky, I play with a pick btw in case you're wondering.. So any tips guys?

[chuckswood2001]

Strumming the guitar

give this site a try, might help for a starter

Chuck

[allthumbs]

You need to study rhythm, broken, muted, all the variations. Get your left and right hand mutes working. Learn how to count out the rhythm.

[kaneashiru1]

thanks rythms not my problem though.. it's which string i hit on the upstrum and whic on my downstrum(sometimes)...

[allthumbs]

Ah. That is just practice.

[Noodler]

Have you ever seen BB King play rhythm guitar? Bet you haven't 'cos he reckons he can't strum!

Yeah, practice. I think a lot of people have the idea that strumming is for beginners and lead is more advanced, but I totally disagree with that.

I've been strumming for years, can change chords on the beat, and the only problem I ever have is the pick slipping a bit if I dig into the strings too deep. But my teacher can just sit there and strum a song, and it sounds like the song. He gets all the nuances of the rhythm of the song on just an acoustic guitar, even if the song is played by a band. The result is that you want to join in and groove along with him. Or he'll start playing a song and I'll start singing involuntarily. I think with years and years and years of practice and (his) talent that strumming is one of those things which should get more credit than it does. It takes a lot of musicality to get a steady firm groove happening, with hard and soft strums, muted strums, fast and slow all mixed together with a strong beat, or even interweaving complex rhythms.

It took me many years to be able to get those little stabs (staccato strums) like you hear in soul music. And I'm still trying to emulate my teacher's strumming. He reckons my strumming is fine (ie on the beat, etc), but I know that it just doesn't have the groove that his has. It's not going to make people tap their feet like his does.

My point is to not discount the amount of skill involved in being a great strummer, nor the value of it. That strumming is a beginner's skill is a myth, IMO.

[kaneashiru1]

I've the answer to my problem... ^_^ I read somewhere that strumming is just faster plucking.. ^_^ Thanks for the help though guys.. I just need to find the UDDU pattern thingies.. ^_^

[Stratrat]

Originally Posted by kaneashiru1

... I just need to find the UDDU pattern thingies.. ^_^

If you practice your strumming and work on different rhythms/strumming patterns, you'll be able to figure out most of the strum patterns used in songs pretty easily. It mostly just comes down to picking up the rhythm of the song and getting a feel for it on your guitar.

I find it nearly impossible to write out the U-D-D-U-D strum pattern stuff off the top of my head when somebody asks what the pattern is for a particular song - but if you were sitting in front of me, I could show you how I play it very easily. When I learn new songs, I never even think about it in terms of "OK, he's going down, down, up, down, down"....I just listen to the rhythm of the song and start playing along with it. The strum pattern seems to come pretty easily that way. I'd have a much harder time if I had a bunch of D's and U's written down in front of me and tried to figure out when to do which. Doing it by "feel" is much easier, at least to me. As Allthumbs said, it's all about the rhythm.

[kaneashiru1]

I pretty much get the rhythm part.... But I've gotta scour the net for vid of people playing to get the d-u pattern.. ^_^

[Noodler]

Originally Posted by kaneashiru1

I pretty much get the rhythm part.... But I've gotta scour the net for vid of people playing to get the d-u pattern.. ^_^

Listen to what Stratrat said, dude.

If you get the rhythm part, you won't need DDDUD, because you'll hear it and you'll feel it. Just practice your basics eg D,D,DU,D on 1,2,3 & 4. Once you've got the feel for that, then apply it. You'll hear the difference between up and down strokes, and it'll come naturally.

I know what you mean Stratrat. Someone asked me to write down the strumming for Time of Your Life by Greenday. It is so much easier to listen and copy than to write it down!

Where it gets harder is songs that aren't guitar songs eg Keep On Loving You by REO speedwagon. What you'd strum if you were playing it on an acoustic guitar is totally different to what the guitar plays on the track. That's where strumming with accents on the snare and cymbals helps, but basically you've got to feel the song. Some accents are gonna be where the singer hits a big note.

Oh, one good rule of thumb is this: Always strum down on 1,2,3 and 4. ie always be strumming down on the beat. (yes I know there are exceptions like Godspeed by the Dixie Chicks).

[Stratrat]

Originally Posted by Noodler

...I know what you mean Stratrat. Someone asked me to write down the strumming for Time of Your Life by Greenday. It is so much easier to listen and copy than to write it down!...

To be honest, I wouldn't know where to start and wouldn't bother trying. Even if you could get the strums and chord changes perfectly synched on paper, somebody would have to know the song well enough to have the "feel" of its rhythm to be able to play it - and if they can "feel" the song, they shouldn't need it written down. Besides which, there are little nuances like only hitting certain strings on a strum in either direction, muting either the up or down strum.....by the time you wrote it all out, a song would resemble a small novel!

I'll admit that I'm often guilty of resorting to tab to figure out songs - but once I have the chords or riffs, then it's time to listen to it, feel it, and learn to play it - the rhythm, the strumming pattern, etc. Like I said before, I think it would be much more difficult to look at a "strum chart" of D's and U's and try to interpret them on the fly.

I've never played Greenday's "Time of Your Life" - but I know the song and as I "listen" to it in my head as I write this, I can feel how I'd strum it. It's even quite possible that you and I would strum it differently, as there's more than one way to play any song.

[Noodler]

Oh man, I find that last bit frustrating.

I really like the way my guitar teacher strums. He's a professional, very musical, etc. He does all of those subtle things you are talking about, for instance only hitting 3 strings with a strum, all this stuff:

Besides which, there are little nuances like only hitting certain strings on a strum in either direction, muting either the up or down strum

It's really nuanced and has so much feel to it the way he does it, you just have to groove along. I love it. I reckon my strumming is in time, but a bit stiff by comparison. I keep asking him to teach me how he strums. Last time we were doing "Oh Sherrie." I asked him how he captured the feel of it so well. He told me to play it and said exactly this: "I guess there's more than one way to play it."

Just like you said,

It's even quite possible that you and I would strum it differently, as there's more than one way to play any song.

He'll give me tips like "play a strong back-beat" or "listen to the drums." But from what you say, maybe he really does think my strumming is fine, and I just like the way he does it better. And yeah that level of subtlety comes with experience, so maybe the more I play the more nuanced my strumming will become.

I feel better. Thanks!

[Stratrat]

Originally Posted by Noodler

....And yeah that level of subtlety comes with experience, so maybe the more I play the more nuanced my strumming will become....

Believe me, I'm walking that path right with you. As far as the name of this site goes, I'm much closer to "Beginner" than I am to "Beyond"!!! Figuring out the concepts is one thing - putting them to work and making your fingers/hands obey is another thing entirely!

I'm a firm believer that it all starts with rhythm, though. If you can't keep time, nothing else you do is going to sound good. All that shreddy scalar lead stuff is great if you want to sit around and impress yourself going "wheedlywheedlywheedly" - but the first time somebody asks you to play an actual song, that stuff isn't going to do you a lick of good unless you can play chords and keep time!

[Korruptive]

My problem now is that I keep playing the same pattern over and over when working on strumming. Hopefully this will help, thanks for the info guys!

[kaneashiru1]

I'm getting better at strumming I've more control of my upstrum now... It wasn't that hard after all... But holding chords for a long time is killing my fingers.. I feel more comfortable letting it fly around the fret board for some reason...
I've notice something about you stratstrat... You seem to harboring some ire for people whoo like shredding... Hmmmm....

Anyways I pretty much sucked at strumming a few days ago, well really really sucked at it. A guy who was pretty good at the guitar asked me to play a song, since I didn't memorize a lot of chords I played notes based on the major scale i got off this forum earlier... Seems as though quite a few songs can be converted to licks and riffs if you just know the scales... Course it took me a piece of paper and a quarter of an hour to play it right...
But in the end it still sounds more right with chords... I guess I'll keep working on it till it sounds even better than the original.. hehehe... I hope...