Strumming

This page is strum and pick. Named-finger pima lives on Classical drills.

• Pick: hold it loosely between thumb and index. Downstrokes toward the floor; upstrokes toward the ceiling.
• Fingers: thumb brushes down across the strings; fingers can brush up. Same motions, no pick.

Simple meters — 2/4, 3/4, 4/4

Each beat is a quarter note. Count the top number in a walking pulse. Hold the practice chord from the top of the page. Feel it sets the metronome and strums that meter — the same button becomes Stop. Beat 1 is the downbeat, the same job as sam.

Compound — 6/8

Six eighths, felt as two pulses of three: 1 & a 2 & a. That is compound duple — a jig, ballad, and a lot of slow rock. The metronome’s 6/8 (3+3) setting clicks the six eighths with accents on 1 and 4.

Feel it

Cut time (2/2, alla breve) uses two half-note beats in a bar that still looks like 4/4 — feel it in two, not four. Odd meters (5/4, 7/8) group the beats (2+3, 2+2+3); pick them in the Beats menu when you are ready. No jazz meters here.

How whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes fill those bars: Note values — write a bar and hear it strummed.

Start the metronome below, then press Play downs. Each click is one downstrum on the practice chord. Keep the arm moving even if you miss a string.

Eighth notes in 4/4

Count 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &. Downs land on the numbers, ups on the “and”. Work left to right — each pattern adds one strum or takes one away. The up-strokes only need to brush the thin strings; the downs carry the bass.

Sixteenth feel

Count 1 e & a. The arm now swings twice as fast and most of those swings miss the strings on purpose. Harder — come back to it once the eighth-note patterns run without thinking.

Other meters

Not everything is in four. These set the Beats menu for you, so the metronome dots match the bar — see Time signatures.

D-DU-UDU

How to practice

• Two minutes per pattern. Loop it until the count fades and the hand keeps it on its own.
• Arm keeps moving. Down on every number, up on every “and”, whether or not that slot has a strum. A rest is a miss, not a stop.
• Up-strums are light. Brush the top two or three strings only. If the up is as loud as the down, the pattern loses its shape.
• Slow first. Drop the BPM until you can play it clean, then add 4–5 BPM at a time.
• Then add the left hand. Only after the right hand is locked, change chord on beat 1 — Em to G to C. Losing the strum during a change means the pattern is not automatic yet.

The classic Hawaiian pattern in 4/4: D–DU–UDU (down on 1, down-up on 2-&,amp; up-down-up on 3-&-4-&). Keep the wrist loose; emphasize beat 1 and the “and” of 2.

Count: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & → D D U U D U

Practice on C only, then C–Am–F–G with one pattern loop. Same grid as D-DU-UDU in the library above.

Hawaiian first-piece maps: Play along · Hawaiian · Folk drills · Hawaiian.

A split separates bass and treble in one bar: thumb (or pick) takes a bass note on the beat; fingers brush E and A on the offs. Same idea as folk boom-chick, but lighter and more “island”.

    1  &  2  &  3  &  4  &
A|----3-----3-----3-----3--   brush
E|----0-----0-----0-----0--
C|-------------------------
G|-0-----0-----0-----0-----   bass (C shape: open G / open C)

Library twin: Split · bass + brush below (pattern id split). Deeper thumb work: Folk · thumb + brush · Break rut · thumb independence.

Two flavours:

• 6/8 rolling — already in the library as Rolling — 6/8 (DUUDUU). Two pulses of three; jigs and ballads.
• 4/4 cascade — down across the strings as a soft roll (not a single slap), then a light up. Feels like a tiny arpeggio inside the strum. Use on C or G when island feels too square.

Library twin: Roll · soft cascade (roll4). Campanella (overlapping open notes) is the fingerstyle cousin on Break rut.

A chuck (or chunk) is a muted percussive strum — left hand lightly deadens the strings while the right hand still strikes. Notated as X in pattern libraries. Alternate ringing downs with chucks for a groove without a drum.

Rest the side of the right palm lightly on the strings near the bridge, or lay unused left-hand fingers on the strings. The click stays; the ring dies. Use it for space between strums, not as a new style yet.

The Chunk on 2 and 4 pattern above is this mute turned into a backbeat — a short dead X where a drummer would hit the snare.

Play along Sing while you strum