{"id":56,"date":"2019-04-03T18:15:25","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T18:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/?p=56"},"modified":"2019-04-03T21:25:13","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T21:25:13","slug":"getting-out-of-a-strum-rut-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/2019\/04\/03\/getting-out-of-a-strum-rut-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Out Of A Strum Rut, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the main problems many people have with playing guitar over a period of time, is always resorting to the same strum for pretty much every song. \u00a0After awhile, even songs that should sound very different, don\u2019t!<\/p>\n<p>If this is something you\u2019re experiencing, then let\u2019s go back to some basics and see what we can do to get you out of the rut.<\/p>\n<p>First of all, many people will strum in an inefficient manner. \u00a0Rather than keeping the strumming arm in constant motion, they will pause at the up stroke or at the down stroke in order to achieve a certain groove. \u00a0When you strum, do you ever pause your arm? \u00a0This usually becomes part of the problem; \u00a0you haven\u2019t learned to strum correctly! Hit the play button on the video below; \u00a0as simple as it seems, try strumming it.\u00a0 This is a G chord. If you\u2019re doing it right, you\u2019ll notice there are no gaps and your arm is in constant motion:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/htE08lzuRA4\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Count along with the numbers underneath. \u00a0This is a full bar of a 4\/4 (or common time) strum.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes counting helps, sometimes it gets in the way, but for now, just count as you strum and if the strum is too quick at first, do it on your own and go at a pace that feels comfortable for you.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, now we\u2019re going to look at the strum again, but with a small change. Hit the play button on the following video:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4uLqhtBKBsc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>When it plays you\u2019ll see that the first down stroke is the same, but the first up stroke is in grey, dotted lines. \u00a0This is what I call a \u201cghost strum\u201d. \u00a0What you are doing now is \u00a0strumming the same pattern, but leaving that second up stroke out. \u00a0You still move your arm, but don\u2019t strum the strings as you come up. \u00a0You\u2019ll notice that you are leaving the same \u201cspace\u201d\u2026you\u2019re not rushing to the 2nd down strum, but moving your arm up at the same speed as you do for the rest of the strum. \u00a0You need to think of your arm like a metronome or the pendulum on a grandfather clock; \u00a0it keeps a consistent movement, up and down, up and down.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re getting it, you can already tell that this is a strumming groove that you\u2019ve probably heard before, or something similar to it. \u00a0When you get used to it, speed it up a little and it\u2019ll sound even better.<\/p>\n<p>Now, if you leave some of the other strokes out, then you get different grooves. \u00a0Here are a couple of examples:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yYYKpgz6-sI\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7FdSXoP6WcM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If you try them out and then speed them up a little, you can see how they each create different grooves! \u00a0Now there are different things you can do to a strum to give it a different feel, such as emphasizing the strokes differently. \u00a0In Part 2, we\u2019ll discuss this emphasis, plus we\u2019ll take a look at strums that you might recognize that go even further. \u00a0With all that you\u2019ve learned so far, however, you can already see all of the strumming possibilities. \u00a0Keep practising!<\/p>\n<p>IJ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the main problems many people have with playing guitar over a period of time, is always resorting to the same strum for pretty much every song. \u00a0After awhile, even songs that should sound very different, don\u2019t! If this is something you\u2019re experiencing, then let\u2019s go back to some basics and see what we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenejackson.com\/guitar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}