Hi
I have a question relating to strum direction (up or down).
When playing a song that has only quarter notes, these are obviously played with all down strums i.e dddd. What happens with 8th notes. I always thought it was played as dudududu, but my friend who goes for lessons told him that 8th notes are played as dddddddd. Is there any right or wrong way to play this?
Please note that I am referring to strumming and not picking (I know that there are different approaches to picking.)
Thanks
strum direction is important for some songs in order to have the correct feel.
alot of the current music I hear is all down stroke.
the other side of the coin says there are no hard fast rules.
so without context of song, I cvould not say if all downstrokes on eight notes is a yes or not.
Depends on what you're playing.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
You can usually get away with playing all downstrokes in many punk rock songs that are made up of power chords (Green Day, Blink 182), but in most cases it does depend on what you're playing and you'll just need to experiment with the song until you get the right feel to it.
Life is my friend
Rake it up to take it in
Wrap me in your cinnamon
Especially in Michigan
...well I could be your friend- RHCP
It really depends on what particular song you are talking about. Many punk songs do use alot of downstrokes but not all and even not all in the same song.
Strumming with all downstrokes gives a fairly distinctive sound than strumming up and down, after awhile you can hear the difference in the recordings.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Hi
I have a question relating to strum direction (up or down).
When playing a song that has only quarter notes, these are obviously played with all down strums i.e dddd. What happens with 8th notes. I always thought it was played as dudududu, but my friend who goes for lessons told him that 8th notes are played as dddddddd. Is there any right or wrong way to play this?
Please note that I am referring to strumming and not picking (I know that there are different approaches to picking.)
Thanks
hi mate
the basic strumming is played with alternate picking (down and up strums): thats' the typical pop/rock strums. This is more natural since it is easy to syncronize the hand movement with your foot (if you tap it on the floor while playing). Another more complex approach is the hard rock/metal one to strum with downstrokes only. Since it means to be able to play twice faster strums, it is difficult at high speed and to do so you usually play just a few strings (tipically 2 or 3 strings power chords). As others said it depends mainly which flavour you want to obtain from your playing: a more aggressive one (all downstrokes) or a more relaxed, bouncy one (alternate picking).
Matteo
