How To Strum The Guitar
A Lesson For The Absolute Beginner
This lesson we will cover learning how to strum the guitar for you beginners out there that are wanting to learn to play.
You will find audio and video examples to help you in fully understanding the lesson.
You will need to have Macromedia Flash Player 8 installed on your computer to see the videos.
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To take part in this lesson you will have to learn, if you don't already know, three simple chords that are found within the key of D major.
These chords are D major (I), G major (IV), A major (V). They are the 1st, 4th, and 5th chords built from the notes found in the D major scale.
The fingerings for the chords are below.
D major 
G major
A major
Let's now apply these chords to a strumming pattern...
First we'll start with the D maj chord, and use a strumming pattern of quarter notes.
This means we will strum the D maj chord 4 times for each bar, or for each beat of the metronome.
Using only downstrokes (starting at the 6th string, and strumming down to the 1st string) for each time you play the chord. Set your metronome to 100bpm.
You may need RealPlayer or Windows Media Player to listen to the audio examples.
Click
to listen
O.k., let's use the same chords, but we will alternate between a
downstroke
and
an upstroke
.
A quick mention....
In the tab below, the A chord is strummed with a quarter note strum pattern, but when watching the video I played it using an eighth note strum pattern. Try playing them both.
Now let's try the G maj chord with alternating down and up strokes, but instead of playing quarter notes, strum eighth notes.
This basically means will be strumming the chord 8 times per bar.
Got the hang of it?
Now let's use the eighth note strumming pattern you just learned and apply it to a simple chord progression in the key of D major.
The video below should fully explain the strumming technique.
Congratulations!
You learned how to strum the guitar and play a simple progression, using the 1st, 4th, 5th chords built from the D major scale.
Give yourself a pat on the back!
Some suggestions...
Practice strumming along to some of your favorite songs to become more fluent with your strumming technique.
Also try and practice different strumming patterns and experiment with different timings as well. Don't worry if you don't know what that means, we will get to that in a future lesson.
Hope you've enjoyed this lesson on how to strum the guitar.
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