Strumming Patterns is a free lesson series by Vicki Genfan previewing the material covered in her upcoming course, 30 Strumming Patterns You MUST Know. Check out Vicki’s other courses, and be sure to subscribe for more free lessons to come!
It’s spring time – flowers are starting to wake up and bloom, birds are flying back to the northeast and singing again… it’s time to get out of your strum-ruts and into some new rhythm patterns, people! We guitarists spend A LOT of time strumming. This is the first of a series of free lessons for TrueFire that I’ve made for you to preview my upcoming course, ’30 Strumming Patterns You Must Know’.
In this lesson I’ll show you a very flowing, full bodied strum pattern that could be used in a folk, rock, or country song. I’m playing it at 80bpm, so it’s a nice ‘ballad’ tempo, but try it at some different tempos and see how it feels. Try it with some different progressions too. We’re using a basic ‘Down-Up’ movement with our strumming hand, but the beauty of this pattern comes across when you place the accents in just the right place. I’ve also thrown in a couple of sweet alternate voicings. Have fun!