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Ways of figuring out strumming patterns?

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(@ossie)
Active Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 4
 

Cheers, great explination makes sense, will work on my dumming and daaing. There is so much you take for granted untill you try to learn how to play!

Thanks
Ossie


   
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(@chris-c)
Famed Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 3454
 

+1 to Matteo's fine explanations.

I never found the DUDUUDD stuff to be much use, as it seems to miss the real point of the exercise. (It's a bit like reading tab saying put your fingers on 8, 5, 10, 12. That tells you something about a melody, but not much. Certainly not the all important timing and rhythm of it all.)

With strumming I've found it much more useful to learn how to connect with the beat (as Matteo said).

When you think about it there's really only one strumming pattern and it goes DUDUDU. Unless you have as many spare arms as an Indian goddess, what goes down must come back up again. So it boils down to whether you hit or miss as you go past. I found getting my head round that was much easier if I tied it to the beat rather than trying to memorise the DUDU stuff.

There seems to be three main elements to strumming:

  • Whether you hit the strings or not, on any given pass

    Which section of the strings you hit (the bass ones, middle, treble, all of them etc...)
    (EDIT: How hard you hit is important too. Variation in subtlety, touch and volume all help keep it interesting).

    The speed and timing


  • Unless you're only playing a very simple rhythm part and other players are doing the rest, then you'll mostly want to know how to vary all three of those things to keep it interesting. Doing exactly the same all the way through doesn't usually cut it if you're on your own.

    This is how I was shown how to make a start on that. It began with 4/4 time.

    Write this at the top of a page:

    1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and

    Count (out loud or in your head) as you play. The 1,2,3,and 4 go on the downstrokes, and the ‘ands' on the upstrokes.

    Start slowly and aim to get it free, steady and relaxed. If it helps, you can use a metronome, or even better make a drum track that has a clear kick on 1 (you should always know where the 1 is!) and perhaps a snare on 2, 3 and 4 with a high hat on all the ‘ands'.

    Then work your way down the page, removing various bits. Only hit the strings where there's an 'and' or a number. Like this:

    1 2 and 3 4

    1 and 2 3 and 4

    1 and 2 and 3 and 4

    and and 3 and 4

    The book I was using showed a dozen variations on that theme, but there's really no end to how many you can dream up once you start throwing in triplets, double speed sections, or whatever. Plus you can try other time signatures than 4/4. But nail the simple stuff first. When it feels easy and familiar, speed it up a bit.

    After a while it starts to feel quite natural and you can make up your own variations and still stay on track. You can also play one pattern for a few bars and switch to another. This can be a simple as playing just one single down strum to fill a whole bar, and then going back to a regular pattern, or mixing up quite complex variations throughout.

    The advantage of this method is that once you have developed your feeling for rhythm, and got some pieces in your toolkit, you can build whatever patterns you need - based on the experience of both your hands and your ears. Then you don't need to rely on some dubious online advice that a certain song goes DUDUUUDD, or whatever. Good home cooking beats take-away any day. :wink:

    That's how it seems to work for me. Others may differ of course...

    Cheers,

    Chris


       
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    (@minotaur)
    Noble Member
    Joined: 16 years ago
    Posts: 1089
     

    As a beginner, I still get hung up on strumming patterns. I think all of us beginners do. There's an article here call The Pattern Trap and another one Strumming for Beginners. Well worth reading and remembering.

    It is difficult to answer when one does not understand the question.


       
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    (@chris-c)
    Famed Member
    Joined: 19 years ago
    Posts: 3454
     

    As a beginner, I still get hung up on strumming patterns. I think all of us beginners do. There's an article here call The Pattern Trap and another one Strumming for Beginners. Well worth reading and remembering.

    Excellent articles! :D

    Somebody should link to those every time somebody asks a question about strumming. It's about building the skills to allow you to create an interesting sound story around an underlying beat - not slavishly following some alleged template for a particular song. It was great to see David point out how the tabs or transcriptions that turn up can reflect whatever notes the performer happened to hit on the day not some sort of holy writ that must be slavishly followed ever afterwards (assuming the transcriber even has it right, which isn't always true anyway).

    As with with most things musical, the best formula seems to be:

    SUCCESS = HOURS + EARS

    Cheers,

    Chris


       
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