 Hi guys, this is Jason here from Nathaniel. In this guitar lesson, we are basically going to look at five of my most favorite or most commonly used guitar strumming patterns which I have learned from various music of different genres like reggae, country, bluegrass, rock, pop in general and also a lot of my guitar player friends who I have been very happy to have come across over the years and learn a lot from them even though guitar not being my primary instrument you may see me doing a lot of piano videos on YouTube. I have just developed and learned some of these rhythms which you could use somewhere or the other in a gig or in a recording or while singing along. These rhythms are very useful for singing along while playing the guitar of course. So all these strumming patterns are going to use chords and just for ease of the lesson and just making things a bit easier in general we are just going to use some of the more open stringed chords like C major you know you could add some color to it but it's pretty much C major maybe some E minors in there some A minors F major maybe a G major occasionally E maybe E seventh so it's just going to be these chords the open stringed chords the chords which use these open notes E A D G B E right easy no barring needed in this lesson so the strumming patterns which I'm going to share with you are all going to divide the beat we are never going to do a strumming pattern which goes something like one two three four you know where it's rather boring and you don't even need to do the upstrokes you just have to go down one two three four so at the bare minimum we are going to divide the beat by two units or we may also divide the beat into four units so if you divide by two you're going to say one and two and three and four and one and so the ands are the upbeat or the off beat the one two three four are the down beat so to generate it on the guitar you can just go down up down up down up down up and count one and two and three and four and as you strum this is without a chord and then when you bring in a chord to the party it sounds quite nice three and four and one so the the down stroke and the up stroke adds a different variety there's a different texture to each stroke right versus that especially for people like me who play with fingers or even with plectrum you will get that effect of going down versus going up for example if I go only down the music starts sounding very chaotic and very forceful if you ask me but if I go down and up it starts sounding very relaxing and normal if you think about it which is anyway how your hand will move when you're playing the guitar the guitar is inefficient if you go that way you're going to probably you know slam your shoulder or your wrist or something like that so get used to the down stroke the up stroke dividing the beat the beat can be divided by two and you go one and two and three and four and or the beat could be generally divided by four if you're dividing by four we go one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one so divide by two divide by four so get used to those strokes and you also have some of the strokes which I'll be calling as a ghost stroke or a mute a guitar mute where you essentially hold the string but you prevent any kind of sound with your fingers and also you don't want those annoying harmonics in the way right so develop a nice muted sound as well so you can combine muting with playing with normal fretting of the guitar you can combine that with some ghost notes for or muted notes I keep calling them ghost notes because of drums and a variety of other instruments so you go so if you take two strums with a chord you could follow it up with some ghosts but ultimately my strumming pattern is just going down up down up down up down up so for most of this lesson the hands are just going to go down and up it's just going to do that but depending on what you want to actually play or fret or what you want to ghost or mute or what you don't want to play or play in the journey of going up and down like you could go what did I do them the motion of my hand kept going down up down up but in some instances of going up or down I chose not to use my right hand so the right hand would or my strumming hand I'm choosing to play the on and the off beat or sometimes I don't have to play and that's essentially what's going to get a pattern and for a little more complicated or more interesting stuff you can start adding ghost notes by muting the left hand which is essentially holding the chord so instead of holding the actual chord you ghost it in certain instances so you develop a pattern which is built around the fact of going down stroke up stroke then going some mutes and we'll also look at a few percussion noises where you can actually use the guitar as a percussion instrument which I do from time to time so you get certain patterns and I'm going to show you five really nice ones in this lesson simple ones bring your guitars play along with me we'll just do some simple chords as well it's not going to be too tricky if you know all your open chords right so it's going to end up sounding maybe something like this just combining your strokes combining your ghost patterns and so on so before we start my five favorite strumming patterns it'll be great if you can hit that subscribe button we'll be doing a lot more lessons on YouTube with theory year training piano of course technology production and of course the guitar bass like we generally do so hit that subscribe hit on the bell icon for notifications leave us a comment give the video a like that helps the youtube algorithm move forward as well let's start the first pattern is super easy divides the beat into two units so you count it as one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four I'm doing the G major chord or why don't we take even the C major chord one and two and three and four and now observe my hand the strumming hand or in this case my right hand it's going in the same motion it's going down up down up down up following the eighth note so I'm at my motion is one and two and three and four and I'm going in this motion but I'm playing what am I doing there I'm not hitting a few of the up strokes or a few of the down strokes let me show you one and see I take my hand up in that natural motion one and two and two and has both the down and the up one and two and three and so I don't do the down of the three I just do the up of the three thus enabling me to play the end of the three and not the on so one two and three and four and you can just chill out at the four let it ring till the end of the four so let me loop this pattern again and try to tell you the strokes down down up up down down down up up down down up and try to keep a nice pulse while you do it I have a nice kick here which you could listen to try changing the chord a bit g back to c d minor a few minors you could speed it up once you gain more confidence so this is a nice tempo for country okay that's pattern number one let's move on to pattern number two so let's look at pattern number two pattern number two continues to divide the beat by two one and two and three and four and but it introduces a few percussive slaps or some kind of muted vibe which we didn't have in the earlier one the earlier one was pretty much just strumming and not playing here in there this one has a few muted or a few ghost notes which I'll demonstrate right now so let's break that down again you have the one stop stop means that noise one stop up up and you could do up up stop you're stopping or you're choking or you're playing the snare drum at the two and the four so it goes that's the pattern you hear that noise or that slap which I'm getting you can do it in any way you feel possible it's I'm a finger player so so I just put my entire palm or sort of punch the guitar a little bit without breaking anything important so you go you just need a nice sound and I leave the the taste of the sound or the quality of the sound to you it's a noise at the end of the day and you have different ways of getting that so pattern number two includes one stop at the two one and two and you're playing at the end of the three one and stop and up up and up at the end of the two and end of the three remember what I told you earlier at the ends we tend to do up strokes and at the ons we tend to do down strokes so you go down up up down up up down up up very popular I think very I could say any kind of pop music you'll have this another thing you may want to experiment is if you want to do finger style if you want to just pluck with just three strings and three fingers you know which is a standard way of doing it you can get the same rhythm right and figure out the stops as well so from time to time I sometimes like doing it with the the finger approach finger style approach or just the normal strumming approach you can add some extra ghost notes to taste if you wish the ghost notes in my book are different than the the actual percussive noise or the snare drum block sound which you get on the guitar this is pattern number two let's move on to the next one right so pattern number three first of all is based on a three by four time signature right you need to also be able to play three by fours on a guitar or any instrument the first two we saw were on four this one is on three so let me break it down for you it's super easy you just do start off like this one two three one two three one and two and three and one and two and three so it creates a nice walls feel one two three two three now you're not going to play the end of the one one two three one two three one two three one two three so practice first probably with a muted option in the left hand and then see how it goes later so you go one two three one two three one two three one two slow it down no no no no no no make it a bit more choppy if you like I've put down a couple of other three by four rhythm patterns which is essentially based around doubling the beat for two of the three beats and then playing one hit at the remaining beat either at the on beat or at the off beat so you have this rhythm pattern for example so good practice would be first do it muted vocalize it a little something like now bring in some chords otherwise it starts getting quite overwhelming I think so you go two three one two three similarly the next rhythm was da da da da da da da da da da da da da da so you go then you could do something like or the last one printed there which is da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da let's just revise the one we've banked on a lot more in this chapter of three by four let me go back to that so you elongate the one down down up down up down up down up So the down, down, come back up without really playing anything. So we say down, down, up, down, up, down. Some of the greatest songs written on three, Iris by Google Dolls, Kiss from a Rose, Seal, some great music out there which pretty much can be played using this pattern, I think. If you want to take it to the more country space, you could probably do the same pattern, but swing it a little and maybe slightly slower. So that's swing versus straight. Swing, straight, swing, and so on. So you could swing it, you could straighten it. You have a lot of patterns which I have put out for you for three, four. Practice them well. Let's move on to the next strumming pattern. So the fourth pattern is like an Americana bluegrass kind of rhythm inspired I would think from Mumford and Sons listening to a lot of their music. So it kind of goes two downs, down, down, down, up, down. So where did I do the downs? I did one, two, and four, and so I do one, two, three, and four, and at the end of the three, at the end of pretty much all the beats, you need to do an upstroke as opposed to a downstroke. So we go, now you could practice this particular rhythm either in the eighth note framework, which is one, and two, and three, and four, and one, and two, and three, and four, and one, and two, and three, and none, none, none, none, none, none, and one, and two, and three, and four, and one. Or you could go all Mumford on the rhythm and go 16th notes and pretty much do the same pattern with 16th notes. So it goes, you may even know this song by Mumford and Sons, right? Well, you can do it for a lot of country music. We just want a very like four on the flow sound, three, four, like... So let's break down the rhythm again, down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up. So that's one, two, three, and four, and one, two, three, and four, and one, two, three, and four, and go on. So practice at normal speed and practice at double speed. I really like this rhythm tried out and we have one more to go in this video. Let's move on, right? The last pattern of this video, I thought we'll just put things together, put all the ingredients in one nice rhythm pattern, which again I think is very popular. So I'll play you the pattern once and then break it down. You can always go through the guide in always mentioned in the visuals where we go down stroke, down arrow, up stroke, X for mutes and so on and so forth. So it goes... So what did I do there? Down, up, whack, do the percussion thing at two, down, up, whack, and then end of the two, hold it on till the end of the three, and then stop at the four. Just like we mentioned in another rhythm, this is very similar where we stop or where we do the muted sound at the two and the four. So you one, and stop, and three, and four, and one, and two, and three, and four. Two and four are choked or muted. Keep that in mind. Don't let anything ring at the two and the four. So you go... There we go. There we go, that's the pattern. Let's slow it down. If I count, one, and two, and three, and four, and one, and two, and three, and four, and one. And do it with the percussion as much as possible. And another nice thing you can do to cap things off is explore this rhythm. And pretty much all the rhythms we did in a straight fashion and a swing time feel fashion. So if you do this rhythm, for example, straight, it's how I've been playing it so far. Versus if you do it swing, the eighth note gets displaced a little to the right. Sort of like a triplet without the middle beat of the triplet, ta, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, swing versus ta, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, straight. And you could maintain this with the same tempo. There are a few questions which some people ask me, should I practice with a metronome, things like that? I would say go with your body, go with your foot, move your body to the pulse. It's how I practice the guitar as well as the piano. So go with your own body's natural reaction to the pulse. Always play with the pulse. Then you divide it by two, be able to divide it nicely and then get your body moving in a organized and relaxed manner. You don't wanna get too tense. So start with maybe muting all the strings, practice all the rhythm patterns and then what you could also do is bring in one chord, do it with one chord, then do two chords and then you explore straight versus swing and when all of that stuff is done, you could then do it with a metronome, like a normal metronome to keep you in time. And don't forget to use this and sing along. Sing, you can sing some of your favorite songs using these rhythm patterns. So feel free to sing along and have fun with these five strumming patterns for guitar. Thanks again for watching the lesson. All the strumming patterns are notated and available on our Patreon page. It'll be great if you can consider heading over there, support our channel, like the video, give it a thumbs up, leave a comment if possible that helps us move forward and I will see you in the next one. Cheers.