Strumming Acoustic Guitar 

 What to know about strumming acoustic guitar:

  Regardless of what type of music you play on guitar (rock, jazz, blues, country, heavy metal) the basic component of the song is the rhythm. One of the aspects that doesn't get the attention that it deserves is strumming acoustic guitar.
  The reason this gets overlooked is because it seems so simple. Someone that has never played a guitar can pick up a guitar and strum their fingers or a pick across the strings and assume that if they could learn where to put their fingers on the fretboard to form a chord, they can play guitar. In essence this is true, and that is where you have to start if you want to learn guitar. Learning to play chords and single notes is what you're mainly doing to learn guitar, and you will spend most of your time on this. Once you can start changing fairly smoothly between chords you will need to start concentrating on your strumming.

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"Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without"
~Confucius

Why is strumming acoustic guitar important:

Strumming acoustic guitar is what provides the rhythm of a song. Knowing three simple chords like G, C, and D, can be played in the same order, but using a different strum pattern or a few different techniques will make it sound like a completely different song. You can spend a lifetime learning the thousands of variations for playing chords and learn all the scale patterns, but if you can't provide a good rhythm in your playing you will never sound good.
 

Strumming Patterns:

Learning different strumming patterns will open a whole new aspect of guitar playing to you, even if you only know three chords. For example, if you're just starting out you most likely are strumming a constant down up down up pattern. When practicing this you should be counting in your head or tapping your foot. If you have four beats to a measure you would be saying "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and". The 1 would be a down stroke, on "and" it would be the upstroke. 2 would be the down stroke, "and" would be the upstroke, etc. Practice this up and down strumming while counting "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" in your head. Once you learn this basic pattern smoothly then you can move on to learning different patterns to make your music sound more interesting.

The next pattern to try would be, once again count "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" in your head, but only strum the strings on the down stroke.

You will still do an up stroke on and, but don't hit the guitar strings. These are the two most basic strum patterns, but you have to be able to do these two first, and then all other variations will be easier to master. Practice these until you can keep a nice even beat going.

Key points on strumming acoustic guitar:

♦ Hold your pick firmly

♦ Keep your wrist loose

♦ Strum the accurate number of strings on the down stroke but
   on the up stroke just hit a few of the strings

♦ Strum smooth, even strums with no hesitations

The Secret to Strumming Acoustic Guitar-
Keep your hand moving!

In strumming acoustic guitar, timing is everything. Being able to master different strum patterns is what will really make the difference in your guitar playing. It is well worth downloading a decent guitar program with audio and video examples of the lessons.

If you haven't checked out JamPlay yet you should see what it's all about.

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