"Guitar - Strumming" Video Transcript

Video Transcript: Guitar - Strumming

All right, this next lesson, we're going to learn basic strumming. As I mentioned in the intro, a lot of what the guitar is, is about rhythm. It's really a melodic drum, it keeps the beat. And so when you're first learning probably, as you've been playing already, you're like, thinking, you know, I don't sound that good. (showing how to strum "This is the day" downbeat stroke)

Maybe that's the strategy we're using. That's a basic downbeat stroke. And the most basic one is if you're, if you're, if you're counting, this is the day it would be 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 . For more, or if you listen to music, and your foot is going up and down, you're basically keeping the beat. And when your foot is down, that's the downbeat, that would be 1 2 3 4. So the easiest way to strum is just go with what feels natural, you're just following your foot. (strumming "This is the day" using a different strum)

Now that that is not that interesting. And the problem with a lot of contemporary songs, is they don't just, you're not just singing the downbeat, you're also singing the upbeat. So if you're, if you're tapping your foot, the downbeat is when your foot hits the floor. The upbeat is when your foot is up in the air. So it's it's like this one, and two, and three, and four and. So if we were going to strum that we would play down on the up and the down. So it's one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four (strumming "This is the day" with up and strum - up and down motion). When that strum, it's easier to sing. Because that song, a lot of the notes are not only on the downbeat, but the upbeat as well. So it just helps with the sing. So the simplest is just the down. (strumming)

But a little bit more interesting is to just you're really just doubling it. (strumming) So that's one way to do the downbeat. And upbeat you do you do all of it that strumming down the other way is to go down and up. So the, when your foot goes down, you strum down and when your foot goes up. (strumming) first, it's kind of hard to you know, because it's, you're trying to play chords, you're trying to sing a song, and now you get this beat thing going. And so it's hard, so just slow it down. (strumming)

Okay, so that's, that's fairly simple, but most guitar players don't do that. They don't play because it just gets really boring when you hear that most guitar players are (strumming) You haven't on your chart. And it's, it's really hard to do at first because it's down up, then Up, down up, down up, down, up, and then you pause a beat, then it's up down, up down, up . (strumming) And this one, you're gonna have to just slow it down. And if you look at the chart, you just follow the arrows and you go as slow as you possibly can. But eventually, you'll sort of pick it up. And then you know, it's really hard to explain a lot of strumming because it depends on the song. (strumming "Lift your Name on high")

Today what I'm doing is I'm combining probably all the different strums that that I just taught you all into one song. And it's over time that my hands just naturally want to do what they want to do. strumming is probably going to be if you're, if you're on your own strumming is going to be the hardest. And my advice to anyone trying to learn the guitar is you really need to sit down with someone else to pick up the strumming because you're sitting there alone trying to follow and it's just really hard to get that feel because a lot of it is just about feel. So if you can find someone that can help you sort of get that, you know, a strum down and you don't need a lot of strums, just a few different strums. And when you learn a new song if people tend to use a certain kind of strum with it, and then you can learn that with them. So that's that's enough for now on strumming