So what I was doing there I was playing an eighth note on the first beat, a quarter note on the second beat, an eighth note combination on the third beat
and a quarter note again on the fourth beat.
That would be counted: One and two, three and four. One and two, three and four.
In this particular strum pattern I am using an upstroke whenever I'm playing an eighth note combination.
One and two, three and four.
This is a pretty basic strum pattern but this is going to get you used to counting while your playing and feeling where the beats are.
Let's take a look at a slightly different strum pattern.
This is going to have a quarter note on the first beat and then a group of eighth notes then a quarter note and then a group of eighth notes.
So it's going to kind of be flopped from the last one we were doing.
I encourage you to play along with these as well as play along with the provided click and backing tracks that are with this lesson
which we will talk about a little bit later.
Here's another variation.
This is going to have an eighth note grouping on the first and second beat.
It's going to have a quarter note on the third beat and an eighth note grouping on the fourth beat.
So we're almost all eighth notes.
Down, up, down, up at eighty beats per minute.
So we are going to count eighth notes as one and, in four, four.
We're going to count quarter notes as just the numeric value in four, four.
Sixteenth notes we are going to count as one, ee, and, uh.
So in the course of one beat you are going to have four different strums.
Whenever we're playing sixteenth note groupings those are the ones that are going to be down, up, down, up.
As opposed to when we're just playing eighth note groupings we are doing down, up, down, up there.
These next couple strum patterns are going to feature the same tempo but we are going to be doing eighth note and sixteenth note groupings.
So the eighth note groupings are going to be just down.
The sixteenth note groupings are going to be down, up, down up.
So let me play this first strum pattern with sixteenth notes and then we'll talk about it.
So I've got an eighth note grouping followed by a sixteenth note grouping, followed by an eighth note grouping,
followed by a sixteenth note grouping.
Basically I am putting the accents then on the one, the two, the three, the four and the extra strums are just kind of flavor.
So if I really slowed this down it would count like this.
One and two ee and uh, three and four ee and uh. One and two ee and uh, three and four ee and uh.
When you speed that up and start accenting it, it starts to sound more just like a normal person playing.
One and two ee and uh, three and four ee and uh. One and two ee and uh, three and four ee and uh.
This next strum pattern we are going to flop it around so it's similar to what we were doing with the eighth notes
and we're going to do a sixteenth note grouping followed by an eighth note grouping, sixteenth note, eighth note.
Be sure to follow along in the supplemental materials because you can actually see how these are written out.
I'm using rhythm slashes to represent the strum patterns.
As you are practicing through some of these you will be able to see not only the representation of them visually
but you'll be able to start understanding how they sound and how they feel as you're playing them.
I recommend starting at right around eighty beats per minute with the eighth note if the highest value you are going to is an eighth note.
If you are going to be practicing the sixteenth note value you may want to go down to seventy beats per minute etcetera.
Whatever allows you to be clean and in the groove with these strum patterns.