strumming help

Never a problem asking for help with songs or other people's videos or whatever. Strumming patterns, thankfully, are not copyrighted.

And it's not hard. You've got to get in the habit of listening to strumming patterns and then counting them out instead of watching to see the "up and down." Even if you're a visual learner, you'll pick up a lot more on your own simply by listening and counting.

The first thing that we hear is that there are four beats to a measure in this song. Each chord change is eight beats. The most basic strumming pattern is going down on the beat and coming up in between on the "ands" or offbeats. So if we were to just start there:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
D D D D
But we can hear throughout the strumming pattern that he's not just going in eighth notes but occasionally throwing in sixteenth notes. So we want to expand our basic pattern to include them (and again, this only illustrates the downstrokes):
1 a + e 2 a + e 3 a + e 4 a + e
D D D D D D D D

If we were to fill in all the upstrokes as well, we'd have this:
1 a + e 2 a + e 3 a + e 4 a + e
D u D u D u D u D u D u D u D u

Now that we have the basic task and our wrist is on automatic pilot for the type of notes we're going to run across, we can listen and then pull out what's not there, giving up his pattern (or incredibly close to it, as he makes minor alterations on occasion):
1 a + e 2 a + e 3 a + e 4 a + e
D D u D u D D D u

Figuring something out like this is not beyond anyone's capablities as long as he or she is will to listen and to count. It's amazing how many people don't like doing either, but this is a skill, like any other, that comes with practice.

Hope this helps.

Peace

oh wow thank you very much!

Something that you will notice is that the guy on the video keeps his arm motion going constantly as opposed to only moving his arm when he is strumming. In other words, even when he doesn't hit the strings, his arm is still traveling like when he is hitting the strings. Most people with great rhythm play this way.

Oh, I'm finding that I'm having a quite a problem with the strumming and rhythm, I try to concentrate on when I'm supposed to strum up or down or if I try to keep my arm moving and then try to concentrate on wether I should be hitting strings, up or down I just get all messed up. If I try to slow it down and strum at a slower rhythm then its not all even or whatever you call it and its more of just random up/down strokes as opposed to a slowed down version of the song. I've only been playing 2 months or so, not sure if I'm taking a right approach to this or not. just a few weeks ago I discovered I was holding the pick incorrectly and it was moving around in my fingers as I was strumming, but after watching a few pick holding videos on youtube I seem to have gotten that straightened out.
I am taking half hour lessons once a week and my teacher was going to have me learn hung my head and was having me try to just keep my arm moving and then concentrate on the strokes but I find I can only get a couple in before I get all mixed up with trying to keep my arm moving consistently and worrying about wether im supposed to be hitting the strings and then if it should be up or down on top of that. Its very frustrating but I'm trying to keep at it.
Any advice you could give me?

It might be worth working your way through the first 3 or 4 of Davids pod casts https://www.guitarnoise.com/blog/podcasts/

Hi mercury187, I went through the same learning curve about a year ago, and I have a few suggestions. Firstly, start using a metronome if you're not already doing so. Forget about playing songs for a few weeks and concentrate on your strumming - you have the rest of your life to play songs :-) Start very slowly, 40 bpm, down strums on quarter notes only, make sure your arm is moving and your foot is tapping. Change between A/E/D or C/G/D. Get this going, then increase the speed. Even count out loud (1 2 3 4 - or Down...). This really helped me.

Once you've got this going, start adding variations, like leaving out the 2nd and 4th beats - and still keep your arm moving and foot tapping.

You'll have this figured out in no time. Then move on to adding up strums on the back beat. Start with Down/Up 4 times with the beat, slowly at first, arm moving, foot tapping, counting out loud, etc. With down/up strums on 4 beats, you have a large number of variations to practice on.

My guitar teacher last year took me through this for a month until he was satisfied that I could hold a steady beat, tap my foot and change chords. Looking back, it was worthwhile doing it, and even now I still return to these strum patterns at least once a month and go through them.

And as mercury187 suggested, run through David's podcasts on strumming, they are great.

All the best, b.