I'm working on an old lesson from David - "Wish You were Here", and I'm always having to go back and refresh my memory on how the strumming pattern goes. So, I decided to write the strumming pattern down on a piece of paper, but can't figure out how to verbalize/ write down this measure, especially the 2nd beat of the measure; a 16th note followed by an 8th note followed by a 16th note.
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How would you count out this measure: one two-e-and three four-e-and ?? I could figure it out if it were all 16th notes but I'm confused by the 16th note followed by an 8th,
Thanks in advance for any help.
Almost. You've got your "and" and your "a" mixed up though.
If it were all semiquavers/ 16th notes then you're right, it would be easy to count "2-e-and-a" and "4-e-and-a". As it is, what you have in those beats is a 16th-8th-16th configuration which sounds as short-long-short and you count/ strum it as
"2 e a" and "4 e a".
making that bar sound "dummmmm" "da-dumm-da" "dummmmm" "da-dumm-da".
Now the tricky bit. On the "a" strums, if you use an upstroke, then your hand is perfectly positioned to play the following beat with a downstroke and you can use your right hand to keep time by playing downstrokes on the beat, every beat.
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I have always felt that it is better to do what is beautiful than what is 'right'" - Eliot Fisk
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Alan- Thanks very much for your reply.
For some reason, figuring out the rhythm is (for me) one of the most difficult things to learn in music. Your "da-dumm-da" example made it much easier to understand:
2-(e-and)-a
da-dumm-da
Likewise, the tip about using an upstrum to keep the beat on all downstrokes is helpful and well worth remembering.
Thanks again for your help.
