Making Joyful Noises

Varying Your Strum to Enhance Your Playing

Now play three strums per chord.

Varying your strum pattern will enhance your guitar chord playing tremendously. Beginning guitarists all seem to “lock in” to a single pattern and tempo, playing every song in the same way. This makes their playing predictable and monotonous. In order to give variety to your playing, practice your strumming work by changing the and of your strums per chord or beat. The “pie” system of rhythm is very helpful in learning new strum patterns. Instead of giving each chord or beat a single strum (e.g., “pie”), why not try two strums per beat (“apple”) or even three strums (“chocolate”) per chord or beat. Or you might vary the beat by interchanging the beat patterns together (pie - apple - apple - chocolate). However you change the patterns of strumming your guitar, always make certain that you 1) play your strums evenly, 2) keep your strumming on time and in tempo, and 3) play the chords correctly, sounding them out loudly and clearly. number division

1.

E A E /// /// ///

2.

D D7 G A A7 D /// /// /// /// /// ///

3.

D E7 A D /// /// /// ///

4.

A D A E7 A /// /// /// /// ///

5.

G Am7 D7 G /// /// /// ///

6.

Em Am7 Em /// /// ///

1.

E A E // // //

2.

E D7 G A A7 D // // // // // //

3.

D E7 A D // // // //

4.

A D A E7 A // // // // //

5.

Em Am7 Em // // //

Making Joyful Noises: Master ing the Fundamentals of Music • 47