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Hey guys. This video is the first in a series of lessons on how to strum guitar.
Now what do you think about when you think of strumming?
You might think of strum patterns
and that's a really good way of learning how to play guitar, it's not my approach to strumming.
What I'd like to do is focus on the fundamentals of you know what is strumming,
what is it all about?
And that's what we're doing here. This is part one we're going to focus on finding the beat of
a song so
why don't you grab your guitar, and let's begin!
So, how do you find the beat of a song? And first of all, what is a beat?
Well you can think about it as the heartbeat of a song. It measures the speed and the
pace of the song.
Faster songs will have a faster beat, and slower songs will have a slower beat.
You know when you're really into a song as you're listening to it and you kind of nod your head as it goes along?
That's finding the beat of the song, so you know, you're halfway there already.
So let's figure this out.
I'm going to start playing a song
and as I play and sing
why don't you, you know, either nod your head, or you can tap your hand on your guitar
and just try to find the beat as you listen. Ready? 1, 2, 3, 4
I don't care if Monday's blue, Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too, Thursday I don't care about you it's Friday I'm in love
"Monday you can fall apart, Tuesday Wednesday
break my heart
Thursday doesn't
even start
It's Friday I'm in love"
So hopefully it's something like this
I don't care
if Monday's blue
Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too
Thursday I don't care about you
It's Friday I'm in love
Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn't
even start
It's Friday I'm in love
So, how'd you do?
You know, this is a really great basic exercise that you can pretty much do anywhere because
music is everywhere, whether you're at work
listening to music, or at home, or in your car
Now the next step is to translate those beats into your guitar strum.
obviously
And the best way to do that is to do what we call muted strum
And it is basically something like this. You're not playing any notes or chords.
You can do that by gently placing your fingers over the strings. You don't want to press down hard. You just want to
touch the strings so they don't make any notes
and when you strum, it makes this kind of muffled, muted sound
And what we're going to do is, for the beat you just
strum a down strum, like this
So instead of the 1, 2, 3, 4
You're going to strum, 2, 3, 4
like that
So we're gonna play that song again
And while we do that just try to
play a down strum, ok
I don't care if Monday's blue
Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too
Thursday I don't care about you
It's Friday I'm in love
Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn't even start
It's Friday I'm in love
So your strums are like, 1, 2, 3, 4
So just try to follow my movements here
I'm not using a pick, but you're welcome to use a pick
So that's pretty much the basics. You know, you can start
nodding and tapping to find the beat, and then you just translate that to
this muted strum
And that's pretty much it for this time
So why don't you practice those two things and we'll see you next time.