Guitar strumming patterns

Holding the pick

Hold the pick between the side of your index finger, curled, and the pad of your thumb, with only its tip showing, a few millimetres. Grip just firmly enough that it does not turn in your fingers. A medium pick, around 0.6 to 0.8 mm thick, is a good start for strumming: thin picks are easy but floppy, thick ones are made for single notes. No pick? Strum down with the nails of your fingers and up with the pad of the thumb or the index.

Move from the wrist, loosely, like shaking water off your hand, rather than swinging the whole arm. Strum over the soundhole, or between the neck pickup and the bridge pickup on an electric.

Down on the beat, up on the "and"

Count a bar of four beats out loud: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. The numbers are the beats, the "ands" fall exactly halfway between them; together they are eighth notes. The rule that makes every pattern easy: down strokes on the numbers, up strokes on the "and".

To keep that rule, the strumming hand never stops. It moves down and up all the time, like a pendulum, and a pattern is just a choice of which strokes touch the strings. When a stroke is not played, the hand still makes the movement, just above the strings. These silent strokes are drawn as dotted arrows below.

Pattern 1: four down strokes

Start here, with one chord, for a whole minute. It sounds simple and it is the backbone of rock and punk rhythm. Aim for strokes that sound even, at the same volume, exactly on the beat.

Pattern 2: eighth notes, down and up

Up strokes are naturally lighter and often catch only the three or four thinnest strings. That is right: it gives the rhythm its bounce. Keep the beats a little louder than the ands.

Pattern 3: D DU UDU

This is the pattern you hear in more pop, folk and campfire songs than any other. Count it: 1, 2 and, and 4 and. The secret is the missing down stroke on beat 3: the hand goes down above the strings, and comes back up to play the "and". If you stop the hand there, the rhythm falls apart.

Pattern 4: three-four time

Waltzes and many folk songs count in three. Lean on beat 1, a little louder, and keep 2 and 3 light. Lesson 8 uses this pattern for a whole song.

Common strumming mistakes

• Gripping the pick too hard. The strum sounds harsh and the pick catches the strings. Hold it just firmly enough, and let it flex a little as it brushes across.
• Strumming from the elbow. Big arm movements are slow and tiring. Keep the elbow almost still and let the wrist and forearm rotate.
• Stopping the hand on silent strokes. The most common one: the hand freezes where a stroke is missing, and the next stroke arrives late. Keep the pendulum going.
• Looking at the strumming hand. It does not need your eyes. Watch the chord hand, or better, nothing at all, and listen to the rhythm.
• Speeding up. Beginners rush, especially on easy bars. The metronome tells you at once.

Practise with a metronome

Set the metronome to 60 or 70 BPM, choose a chord you know well and play pattern 1 until you stop thinking about it, then pattern 2, then 3. Only raise the tempo when a pattern sounds even for a full minute. In the exercise, strum D DU UDU twice in a row: down strokes with the Space bar or by dragging from the low E to the high E, up strokes with Shift and Space or by dragging the other way.