The main concept behind strumming the guitar in a way that flows with the song is to make sure you are staying with the beat or the rhythm of the song. Some songs have much more complicated beats and rhythms than others and you may have to adjust how you hold and play the guitar depending on the strumming pattern needed. One of the first things any musician will learn to help them keep the rhythm is just to use a simple foot tap. By tapping your foot in time with the song it acts as a sort of external metronome when you don’t have one and helps you stay on the right beat and rhythm. For most songs that are written in four you can tap your foot on the second and fourth beat of each measure to help you keep time.
Glad you asked! It is exactly what it sounds like it is. It’s a series of down strokes and up strokes on the guitar that gets repeated throughout the song. The strumming pattern shown in the video is an excellent pattern to use when learning to keep the rhythm and a consistent pattern. Practice it for a while and then come up with your own patterns to use! Just make sure that they are the same pattern over and over.
You can usually tell the strumming pattern from listening to the song. If you have music for the guitar and the strumming pattern is a bit more difficult or if you are learning from a lesson book you might see a strumming pattern represented with a series of arrows (pointing down and up) with spaces in between the breaks. You might also see a strum pattern represented with the letter ‘D’ for down and ‘U’ for up with spaces between the breaks in the pattern.
