Strumming Patterns

Author: Justin Sandercoe

This is also a very important exercise. Many people have a natural feel for playing rhythm guitar. If you are one of them, you might like to do this exercise so you know what you are doing, if you are finding strumming difficult then read on. The whole idea behind strumming, keeping a good feel and playing in time is to keep your hand moving at all times. Your hand (at this stage) will always strum down on a Downbeat (the 1, 2, 3 or 4) and UP on the Upbeat (the +'s pronounced. "ands"). A bar of "normal" 4:4 time will be counted 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + making eight strums in a bar, 4 up and 4 down. Try just strumming down on the 1, up on the +, down on the 2, up on the +, down on the 3, etc. try to tap your foot (You will notice that most, if not all, guitarists tap their foot while they play on the downbeat too. Practice until you can do this evenly then look at the page.

See the count written under the notes shown above. The joined together notes are called eighth notes or quavers and they are worth exactly half of one of the singe ones called quarter notes or crotchets. As you can see a bar or 4:4 can be divided lots of ways. You can think of it like a crotchet is worth a pound, and a quaver as fifty pence. In a bar 4:4 you have 4 pounds to spend how you like. You must spend 4 pounds, no more, no less. You will see that the many simple variations of these patterns can create great rhythm guitar parts. You will see on the sheet that in Bar 1 there are four "pounds". In Bar 2 there is 1 "pound", 2 "fifty pence" and then two more "pounds" (making the 4 pound total). In Bar 3 it goes 1 "pound", 2 "fifty pence", 1 "pound", 2 "fifty pence" (making the 4 pound total again).

The lines that are joining some notes together in the second line are called ties and they literally tie notes together. Where you have two tied notes you strum only the first, and let it ring out for the duration of the two notes. As you will see it has a great effect and really brings the patterns to life. It is really important to remember to keep your hand moving at all times, down on a downbeat and up on the ands even if you are not strumming move your hand along anyway, this is what will give you strong, confident rhythm playing.

Once rests are introduced you can see that a quaver by itself has a tail (where before when they were together they were joined together) and the little thing that looks like a strange 7 is a quaver rest. When you have a rest you should touch the strings with the outer palm of your right hand to mute the strings. This will take some getting used to, but eventually you will find a comfortable and easy way to do this.

Lastly ties and rests are combined to give you interesting and very real examples of rhythm guitar playing. Take your time on these, they are worth it.

You can download the sheet music for Strumming Patterns 1 here.

You can listen to an audio clip of Strumming Patterns 1 by clicking on the following: