How to play the guitar - The MYTH of "Strumming Patterns"

[@shakey88]

I often tell people who are very new to a strumming instrument to put on a song they know well/naturally gets their head bobbing, hold the guitar, mute the strings with your fretting hand and just jam away with your strumming hand. Listen to it on repeat while just letting your strumming hand find the natural rhythm without worrying about the chord shapes and changes etc. Just find the rhythm! Music is all downstream of rhythm and at the end of the day you can make 1-3 notes sound pretty groovy over most contemporary music by just following the natural rhythm of the tune. Find the groove then worry about the harmony!

[@marvinfarney4260]

Hi Matthew just wanted to thank you for the strumming lesson. I was on of those guys that was up up down up , and it was so hard. Right after watching I picked up my guitar and slow counted to four ,then picked up the tempo then my foot started to keep time to the strumming of my hand nobody in all my years (71) ever explained strumming to me and that’s why I played or struggled almost all my life. I have played a few songs now at their tempo and I am leaving out strums ,man guitar playin and music is fun again. Thanks

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

That makes me so happy!! It also makes me happy to hear somebody 71 years young having breakthroughs. I can't tell you how many times I get guys coming into my studio, they might only be in their 60s but they say, "well I can't learn this the right way cuz I just don't have enough time left in life". No, I'm not kidding!! It's like I have to have a whole psychology breakdown with that person lol. Thank you for your feedback!

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

I hadnt watched my own video here in quite a while, and I must say... all of you are too kind!! I am conveying the proper information but its super all over the place!! 😅 I will continue to refine my approach here, so stick with me and I promise I'll come through with more helpful stuff Ive learned from 30 years of guitar teaching!

[@Cloudy_Fox]

Yes! Trying to follow strumming patterns always used to mess me up and feel forced and awkward - I stopped paying attention to them years ago and now I know why. Thank you. 😊

[@mike7474w]

You had me at "I can teach anybody to do this...". Over the years, I've helped guitar-playing friends strum their way through Neal Young tunes, which can be rhythmically challenging, as we all know. Many, at first, find Young's strumming mysterious, yours truly no exception. Young's percussive yet soft-to-the-ear strumming is a must for us all to practice, practice, practice. I'll be showing this video beforehand in the future...and turning them on to you, Matthew. Looking forward to hearing more!

[@Bazz_A]

Wholeheartedly agree! Well said! If you're feeling the music and keeping in time it's not difficult for anyone to join in the singing. Counting the beats (as is demonstrated in the video) is much more beneficial (and musically correct) than mindless down up down strumming pattern nonsense. So pleased to know we're not alone in our views. Keep up the good work 👍

[@UURevival]

Oh my yes! I tried the strum patterns and would try to follow... like you say that just messed me up. I realized recently when after failing to try and follow the strum to Horse with No Name I was able to pick it up by feel. Now I go back and see that I am indeed following the up down pattern that I could never follow by reading it.

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

I love it! And excellent song example

[@StokesMusicStudiosOnline]

I explain this to my students the same way. Everything is down up down up. It never stops

[@EricMcConnell]

this puts my mind at ease and more in the rhythm. thank you

[@henryshort6927]

You are 100% correct, forget strum pattern play what you hear, mimic the song. Miss a strum like you said but keep that arm moving in time.

[@tonyhudson8235]

I suffered from strumming patterns for quite a while. Then I started to learn funk and it was close to impossible. Learning funk style strumming, or "The Funky Chicken" massively improved my rhythm. No patterns required. Works for acoustic, too. Although, obviously, you miss the strings more than strike them so you can get that lovely acoustic ring. Anyway, funk taught me rhythm.

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Good call! Definitely Funk style guitar is one of the best if not the best style to see the example of what I'm talking about. It's all about that constant arm swing. I used to butcher songs like Michael Jackson's " Rock With You " because I didn't have that steady swing thing figured out.

[@tonyhudson8235]

@matthewmaurysmith2486 Oh I butcher every song. But at least I butcher it more humanely now.

[@carlosvillasenor4221]

So grateful how you simplified the whole concept about strumming patterns. Nothings is by the book when it comes to music. Is about feeling it from the heart. Thank you !

[@michaelmerrullo2043]

Yes, you hit on something that has always crossed my mind. My strumming evolved by bashing out songs by ear intuitively way before KZbin. When I tried to teach somebody a song I'd get stumped on explaining, " How are you strumming?" Me: " I don't know, the song goes like this." Watching KZbin teachers over the last decades has helped me better explain something that came naturally just by playing. Of course there's dampening etc. But that came intuitively too. I understand some people need more guidance than others though

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

No doubt! It seems like in my first decade or so of teaching I just showed people stuff and gave real brief explanations and let them sink or swim. But then now, it seems like I'm meticulously describe everything. Of course I teach a lot of adults now ;-)

[@63fryeguy]

Dude! Thanks for that. I appreciate the simplification of a topic that can feel hard to approach as a fledgling guitarist. I've been working on a handful of riffs lately that have some timing challenges. JLH's Boom Boom is an example with 4/4 timing but in a call and response style where the "call" is 1/8 notes and the response is quarter notes. I relate to this conversation because while I was playing pretty accurately, the change between 1/8 notes and the quarter notes was lost on me until my teach pointed it out. You are pointing out the strumming version of this. Your arm is swinging in time, maybe 4/4, but you might only be strumming one, two, or three notes per bar. And in some cases, maybe you're strumming a couple of 1/8 notes on the down and squeezing in 1/16 notes on the up. Music and music theory continue to make me smile. What a gift for all of us. Looking forward to more from you!

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Thanks!!

[@UURevival]

Love it! Thank you! I was recently trying to play Little Bitty and I was doing the DDDuDu- which for me as a beginner is a quick chord change in the middle of that strum. Then I noticed just using the time for the chord changes and using a quick strum (that I couldn't tell you what it was) sounded really good. It also provides more variety in the sound. I've also noticed on some songs I started altering my strumming over the sound hole without realizing it to alter the sound intensity.

[@clydespaulding5826]

Great lesson! I appreciate that you clarified getting out of a rigid pattern and doing what sounds good to you for whatever song you're playing. Also, thanks for suggesting that it's ok to make up your own pattern if you want which I seem to do without thinking about it. Liked and subscribed.

[@reidtillery2856]

Great information. Thank you.

[@PoPo-xp7yk]

what happens to the up-down arm swing if the rhythm uses dotted notes?

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

I assume you mean if you were say, swinging your arm up and down with an eighth note Rhythm and then all of the sudden there's a 16th note subdivision happening somewhere? That could of course occur with a dotted eighth note rhythm. So, I call it "doubling up", and I think it's probably a hard thing to explain to someone, but essentially it's when you're swinging your arms steadily and then you have a burst of Beats that are double the speed. It feels really natural to do that, so I just call it "doubling up" LOL ... an example would be if you had a measure of all eighth notes and you were swinging down up, down up, down up with the 1 & 2 & 3 & but then when you get to beat four you double up and play 16th notes to a 4 e & a count. Or, if you had three beats of eighth notes and then on the 4th beat it's a dotted eighth note, I imagine you could just delay that second arm swing and try to land it right on the last 16th note of that fourth beat.... but as I sit here and try both of those things, I don't recommend that last thing I said. It seems like if you're going to have a dotted subdivision you're better off just swinging your arm to the 16th note rhythm throughout the entire measure so that when that 16th note lands your arm is already subdividing that beat

[@MockyMak]

Hey man very nice explanation with plenty of examples to show what you mean by it. i just picked up the guitar this week and have been obsessed with teaching myself, clocking in 40+ hours already. Chord fingering has been fairly easy so far and ive learned the main riff of Rivers of Babylon by Sublime, however when i get into the verse and attempting these "patterns" i was doing exactly what you said.. very rigid arm movements to try and emulate what i was hearing, but to no avail. You may have just opened my eyes a bit on the strumming end of learning the guitar and i intend to practice this later and see if i feel any difference with it. it seems so obvious having it broken down the way you did, anyways, im grateful for the lesson! You seem like a very understanding teacher, looking forward to more videos!

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Thanks for that feedback! You know, I played for a long time and I might have been swinging my arm regularly, I may have also not been on certain songs, but I can definitely say I wasn't thinking about it that way and I had a lot of Rhythm issues. Epiphany came when I watched other players whose arms were wagging in a very relaxed and even way even when they weren't hitting the strings. The thing was, I'd been having problems for a while and when I saw that it just hit me, that's what I've been missing! The other thing I did was I learn how to strum from strumming notation, playing exercises out of books. Particularly strumming patterns where you have eighth note rhythms and down up motions. That helps tremendously! But I can definitely tell you it wasn't just like a flipping of the switch, it definitely was a process. But I feel like if you just know about it, that's the biggest thing, and then everything else should you starts getting you there...

[@MockyMak]

@matthewmaurysmith2486 I found myself noticing the arm movement but wasn't really sure what it was I was seeing, just that they were clearly doing something different than what I was doing. Sometimes you just need to hear it and see it explained showing the right and wrong movements. It's when you showed the rigid motion that it all clicked. I think of a lot of the guitar lesson videos I watch are missing the beginner perspective and just expect people to fully grasp everything all at once. But to show the mistake and then the right way.. You're onto something here, keep it up!

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

My biggest advice for self-taught players would be to read tablature as much as possible! I know the videos have gotten a lot better in the last 10 or so years, but videos will keep you subjugated to having to have your hand beheld and soon everything .... but if you can read tablature, and better yet actually read standard notation, you will be much more powerful and you will be able to problem solve and read music rather than having to be shown. And when reading tablature, I notice most of my players do not want to look at the tablature itself, they'll look at it for a couple seconds and then stare down at their hands trying to remember everything they can't remember. Practicing mistakes. But the best thing to do is to keep your eyes on the paper and just trust your left and right hands. Making mistakes will be your teachers and it's okay to miss a string or jump to the wrong fret, that's how you dial in your ability to play without looking. I was very fortunate that I got good at sight reading music and tablature early on, it changed everything about my guitar playing life and I never get stuck or bored anymore! If someone wants to learn how to read music, I can teach them how to read music across all six strings and play fingerstyle Within 4 months!

[@jstnxprsn]

Good video. I've been playing for many decades and get plenty of compliments as a lead guitarist, particularly these days, but over the years I have gotten a lot more for my rhythm playing, which is a combination of acoustic strumming from my folk music beginnings and using the more muted bass string downstrokes from my electric playing applied to my acoustic. Basically, I recommend thinking of strumming your rhythm like a percussionist plays against a drummer in a band. Let go and go with the feeling you have for the music. Very few songs require a specific strum pattern to really pull off the effect of the original and often only sections of a song. The acoustic parts of Boston's songs and the back beat upstroke emphasis on the latter half of the verses in Born to be Wild spring to mind. Other than those exceptions, go with what you feel. Thanks for bringing this up. It's not talked about enough.

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Definitely not talked about enough! And to make matters worse, ultimate guitar puts those strumming pattern notations at the beginning of songs, so many players I work with have held themselves back unknowingly by obsessing over that strumming pattern stuff, meanwhile they haven't even gotten the chord switches down quick enough to maintain it... I've got a couple of ideas I use in lessons to help people work through that when they're trying to learn how to strum and sing songs...

[@garethmartyndavies2250]

Brilliant information for those newbies cos you just let go and feel it 🙌🇬🇧

[@levibuildsbarns5981]

Wow. Eye opening.

[@RikHoward.]

I fully agree. I have never follow a rigid strumming pattern. I go more with a natural feel for the song I'm playing/learning. To follow a rigid strumming pattern would bore the crap out of me. For me i find the best way to learn a song is to listen to the original and try to get feel for it and then i might try to add something or take something away or even play the song with a different tempo slower/faster. Following rigid strumming patterns just slows beginners down.🎤🎸🎼🎵🎶🎵🎶

[@dixjam2258]

One thing you should mention is how important the context is...If you are playing alone, if you also sing or if you play with other people. I have had the absolute unpleasant surprise of having a song down, so to speak, playing it alone and when other people come into the mix, nothing works. However, here is the paradox - if you constantly adapt your playing considering the other players, you will never significantly advance your skills, there is something about playing alone that opens up your creativity. So I have reached the conclusion that there should be 3 separate distinct rulebooks - 1 for Alone, one for Alone + Your voice and One for everything else.

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Interesting ideas! And definitely worth extrapolating on..... I think one of the best compliments you could ever get is if somebody says that you are a " sympathetic " player. Piano players and guitar players are often notorious for not being very sympathetic- or, able to accommodate or adjust their playing to better the music being played.... I think this is because we spend so much time playing by ourselves and we don't develop a listening muscle to listen outside of ourselves while playing. I had the hardest time learning to play with a metronome when I first tried to do it! For that very reason. But over time, by learning to tap my foot and count, and yes, learning to read music definitely helped with that, I finally got to the point where I felt like I could listen outside of myself and stop doing things like speeding up or overpowering or ignoring others while playing in ensembles. Of course, everything's a work in progress and sometimes those Gremlins are waiting in the bushes;-)

[@dixjam2258]

@@matthewmaurysmith2486 True, and there is also a logical explanation about the piano and guitar players not being "sympathetic" - because we can. We have the luxury of having a more comprehensive instrument - more than the other poor "shmucks", we can simultaneously hold a groove, play bass + harmony, lead and even fill-ins and solos- with that "power" comes a greater array of opportunities to fuck up, so of course we are going to be intolerant towards a drummer that doesn't seem to understand the time signature, a bass player who doesn't find the key and worse of all - a brass player that thinks it is a wonderful idea to play louder than everybody else combined. And while I fully agree with you about better listening and metronome, you better pick your ensemble projects carefully - I have had instances where it took me days to "recuperate" after a gig where things happened that were almost intolerable from my point of view (long story).

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

​@dixjam2258 oh boy! I'd like to hear those stories! I've played tons of gigs and the worst experiences I've ever had was just having to play for too long... like doing a solo gig for an event or at a restaurant where you play for 3 or 5 hours. I enjoyed it when standing up, playing on stage and singing and fronting a band... but sitting down and playing left leg w a footstool is physical torture after a while. Pretty sure I messed up my left hip by playing too many hours with a footstool! Also, gigs where you are super nervous playing hard as hell composed guitar music and right before you start the piece, it dawns on you that you haven't practiced the piece enough!!! Yikes. Nothing harder and more underaporeciated than the amount of time classical guitarists have to put in to play even just the standard repertoire. I've never seen steel string guitarists that use a higher skill set. But, unfortunately, that kind of guitar music is lost on most people. Proving that the guitar is capable of multi voice counterpoint music was great for the guitar, but it seems to surpass the natural home guitar seems to find as an ensemble instrument. I've literally seen crowds of thousands hang on every move of an electric guitar improvisation! No other instrument conveys the subtle elements of human touch like the steel string guitar or the electric guitar!

[@MellowGhetto]

BASED. Liked and Subscribed!

[@jamesrobertson4035]

LOVE THIS! I'm the worst guitarist I know (even compared to those youtubers who are 6 and have been playing for 20 days!) Strumming is soooooo hard, and to maintain a pattern for a whole song! I just Jam "noise" & rhythms that sound decent, instead of playing actual songs (kind of what you are saying. But I've only been playing since 1974 so naturally I'm still TERRIBLE!

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

I found a book by Jody Fisher called " I used to play guitar" and it takes a couple weeks to get it cuz I don't think they print them now until someone orders one. But I've had several of my players here at the studio order them, and I myself have been working through it recently. While he gets in the other subjects later in the book, it has a comprehensive section on strumming where it starts with very simple quarter beat 4/4 times strumming, and then it moves into half notes and whole notes and 8th notes and then eventually 16th notes and he does a great job working you up the ladder and through the ranks of different rhythms. Considering the fact that the only other way to try to work on strumming is to play by ear, which basically has no systematic recourse to it, it's an excellent way to try and hone in your strumming skills.

[@AdamBromley-b7g]

great advice!

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Glad it was helpful!

[@tylerking93]

It’s all about “feel”

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Simply put, but that says it all! I think that's what bothers me about strumming patterns. That somehow the music relies on a repetitive set pattern. The Magic in listening someone's strumming when it's good is that they are NOT following a pattern.... it's very much in the zone or doing it by feel thing as to when you let the pic hit the strings are not hit the strings, as long as you have that mechanism of the consistent arm swing, you can let the magic happen from there

[@liberalsrmentallyflawed3611]

Just saying it's all about feel. Is only half of the process. Knowing what time signature the song is in is the most important. Rythum wise that is. And knowing how many beats each chord gets.some chords split a measure and sometimes a chord holds for more than 1 measure.

[@timmiller1]

I’ve always been confused when someone comments on a video and says “nice song! What’s the strumming pattern?” I think, “didn’t you just hear it?”

[@liberalsrmentallyflawed3611]

They may of asked that because you were all over the place and really, out of time.

[@derekgibson1080]

Smoking a joint helps. GROOVIN MAN

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Yes, the sober human mind and all of its ego-driven filters can certainly be a hindrance sometimes! And then, it's all about balance;-)

[@HandyL]

Strumming patterns… that’s like using footprint stickers on the floor to dance 😂✌🏽

[@DanielHill-fc3wd]

It comes from the heart

[@Johnnyondaspot-t5x]

Agreed

[@acoustic-gymnastics]

thank ef for thatttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

[@acoustic-gymnastics]

I been learning 9 months check my writing out one day

[@iniscara]

I've always hated those up down etc. patterns. I always say...think of it as your strumming hand dancing. You go out on the dance floor and naturally dance, you don't think...I'm on the dance floor, I'll use my dance pattern.

[@michaelcox8604]

This helped. Thanks. However I do think standard strumming patterns are useful as they inform of variations, otherwise its easy to consistently fall back to same old pattern for every song. I myself have a strumming pattern that I've used for 50+ years and I seem to always fall back on it by instinct. I strive to get away from it. And of course some styles of music require certain patterns otherwise the style would not be evident, eg country boom chika, spanish, reggae, etc....None-the-less I appreciate your advice. 6/4 time was excellent. You mentioned 3/3 but maybe next time you could include.

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Really that video is just the beginning of what I suggest to learn good Rhythm skills. It's definitely a good idea to work through a book that has lots of different strumming patterns written out of notation and to try to count and read them. There's probably a bunch of books out there that have that sort of thing in it, recently I've been using a book by Jody Fisher called "I used to Play Guitar" (lol) but I've worked through the first half of it and it's just page after page of strumming patterns and all kinds of different time signatures and different types of Beats used...

[@caveatemp]

Yes, you're right. It's hard to teach.

[@MrSDFD18]

Amen!

[@tsgtalford6813]

Thank you….

[@Oscar_Castrejon]

Thanks man!! Strumming patterns piss me off!!!

[@sardarbelal3114]

More Tips pls

[@lauriesmith3832]

...with age comes the interesting phenomenon of occasionally not being able to PHRASE the singing part in correct placement to ANY strumming pattern...in THIS context...no strumming pattern works for me except the same two or three that "comes naturally" to me,...and further.....all strumming patterns are RIGID in the learning process ...but over time will come to a natural rhythmic relaxed ..on the money strum...IF and only if one continues to perservere ....

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

One thing I've been tinkering with is purposely delaying the rhythm of my vocals so they don't exactly line up on the beats, or to hold and sustain certain words longer than they seem like they should. And my favorite thing ever is keeping a bass line going and harmonizing the vocals with the bass walks... even if it's just simple walk ups/walk downs in a country type song. Then, it's like you're playing 3 instruments plus singing! Bass notes, strumming light chords between and around the bass. And then the washboard like rhythm effect of the plastic pick on the metal strings. The best thing I learned from classical guitar is that kind of music treats each string like a different instrument. I've played pieces where there were FOUR distinct melodies counterpointing at once. Typical composed pieces will have a bass line, an upper melody, and then one or even TWO inner voices!! Pop music guitar doesn't really do that because the guitar has to fit in with so many instruments.... but it can if you know how! That's truly why I believe every guitarist should learn SOME classical guitar. It makes you better and gives you a unique edge

[@DanielHill-fc3wd]

I totally agree you don't have to be another jerry garcia

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Jerry is my favorite guitarist. But I can't solo at all like he does. The phrasing is just magic to me. Someone said it perfectly when they said "if you're a fan of Jerry, there's always an archetypical expected way you THINK he's going to play something, but when he does it, he never actually does what you expect" or something like that. I'm kind of glad i never mastered imitating him because I wouldn't want to be a Jerry mimic, but guys like Kimock and Mayer really have their own style come through while actually capturing the essence of that special sound he had, and that I respect and enjoy listening to. I also like Trey, but his sense of phrasing is a little bit like mad scientist fireworks, where Jerry is like flowers blooming in slow motion time lapse or gentle falling stats over ocean waves crashing on a nighttime beach. I just play the melodies that come to my head while inevitably sounding a tad bit like those guys since I've listened to them both SO much. But my sense of phrasing and melody construction is very "classical" (which is a nice way of saying predictable) due to the shit ton of composed 19th century guitar music I learned. Always trying to get better!! The older I get, the less useless notes I hope I play!

[@andrewbowen6875]

Well yeah those types of lessons going on up down up ect just sucks the life out it imo. Strumming is actually one of the last things to fall into place imo as it’s not the fretting hand as one would think

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

I wish I would have mentioned this! So many times people come in after we have a lesson where I set them up with songs to work on, and I asked them how it went. They say, well I understand the chords but I just can't get the strumming pattern. But then the truth is is they don't have their cord switches down quick enough, so they can't really keep the strumming pattern going from chord to chord without the pause.. In that case, it makes no sense to worry about a strumming pattern or even to do any strumming Beyond just maybe strumming the cord once and then singing the lyrics to instill the timing of with the change. I call it "playing the points". Maybe I'll make a video about that next

[@andrewbowen6875]

@matthewmaurysmith2486 Certainly worth doing a lesson on as it’s easy to forget how difficult it is just to change chords and even make the chords ring out at first. No substitute for putting the time in again as it does get easier. Neil Young was a good example to follow as someone who always keeps that strumming hand moving up and down.

[@LucidDrill]

Hmm, this is kind of like what we just learned about in our lesson today how to help my f barcord remeber

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

I'm trying to send you some sheets but my scanner didn't work... but I'll get them to you before our internet lesson Sunday. I'm waiting for someone to say, this is outrageous of course there's a such thing as strumming patterns LOL

[@LucidDrill]

@@matthewmaurysmith2486 ok

[@pamulawallace4330]

❤❤❤❤😊😊😊😊

[@cheezer57]

I never follow strumming patterns. If I'm happy with what comes out of me, and people like it, I'm doing it correctly, bottom line...If it's coming out differently than the original then so what?!..Even the original artist plays their own stuff differently, and in multiple ways, than they first did..Go with, If it feels good, it is good..That's all you need.

[@liberalsrmentallyflawed3611]

And that is why people can't sing along to your playing.

[@liberalsrmentallyflawed3611]

And when you play like that. Makes singing along very annoying. When the rythum player is all over the place...

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

Hmm... I respectfully disagree. First of all, if you're actually doing what I suggest then you would not be "all over the place" rhythmically. Since saying "all over the place" is not really a technical music term, I can only assume what you mean is that your strumming is not on the beat or you are changing the beat grouping so that it does not follow the song in the expected way. Neither of those things are what I suggest. I suppose you could show me an example of what you mean, but I sing and play all the time, and by using the technique I described, I am able to gently change the strumming or the picking that I am doing to go along with the singing that I'm doing. A rigid strumming pattern would make a song one-dimensional and very boring. However, if the song has certain verses that are dynamically a little bit louder than others, or versus where you sort of break it down before bringing the intensity back up for a rousing ending, then doing what I suggest would be absolutely essential to giving the song a sense of discreet sections and it's one thing that I try to do in my playing to make my singing and playing a lot more interesting.

[@dougww1ectebow]

I HATE all that down up down BS. FEEL IT AND PLAY IT!

[@aaronlarsen7447]

Don't say "down, down, down, up down Say 1,2,3,and4

[@rjlchristie]

You put useful information across but in a disorganised and musically ill-defined manner.

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

I understand what you mean by "disorganized" but you'll have to specify how it's "musically I'll defined" for me to take anything helpful away from that comment. But thanks for watching!

[@billstraka4946]

Down strum on the numbers

[@christophersolomon7042]

Don't drag. Get to the point. We're also players.

[@Mo-xx9gg]

If you are a "player", why do you need this? 🤔 You don't get to "demand" when watching free content! There were several useful points all the way through the video!

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

​@@Mo-xx9ggthanks for the shout out :-) I have found that no matter what you do, when certain people see someone else get natural positive feedback from others, they just HAVE to try and tear that person down. One can only speculate from that point as to why. The truth is, for each of these videos I make, there are probably a dozen takes that I do beforehand where I ramble on or talk too long or unnecessarily repeat certain points and I have to start over and do it again. So I try my best to get right to the point and only really talk about things that I think bolster said points. I also always appreciate any kind of criticism as long as it's constructive

[@davidgray4682]

I follow strumming patterns and find that they work so you are misguiding beginner players

[@brin57]

He's not misguiding anyone. He's trying to tune people into hearing and feeling the rhythm and playing accordingly. If someone has any musical aptitude, this is natural and instinctive to do, and only needs this kind of prompting to get on board. This is what gets people, especially beginners 'Playing' music, and not getting caught up in the intricacies. That can come later once they're hooked and desire to dig deeper. Millions of people have been turned off playing instruments because teachers tried to get them bogged down in the details first.

[@liberalsrmentallyflawed3611]

​@@brin57And that is why people can't sing along to some players. They play by what they're feeling and actually their timing is off..

[@davidgray4682]

​@@brin57 it doesn't matter what you do you are still following a strumming pattern so it is misleading it may be felt or it may be systematic you are still playing a pattern

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

​@liberalsrmentallyflawed3611 I . It seems that you misunderstood what others meant when they described it as "playing by feel." What they did NOT mean was not following the counting and not following the time signature, which would be the only thing I can imagine that would make it impossible for a singer to sing along with someone's playing. when you are constantly swinging your arm you should be doing it to the time signature. So, the whole point of doing it is to stay true to the meter. Whether you do an upstream on beat 3 or you don't do one on beat four or you missed the downstream on beat two should be irrelevant as long as you are following the overall time signature of the song. The "doing it by feel" comments referred to the fact that instead of rigidly following a strict strumming pattern on every measure, you should have the freedom to very it's slightly without changing the overall Rhythm of the song... instead of playing a pre-planned pattern, you are instead responding spontaneously in the moment, varying your strumming to reflect changes in Dynamics and intensity, highlighting different sections or creating the ebbs and flows of different moods as a song goes through its different parts.

[@matthewmaurysmith2486]

​@@davidgray4682 Of course, I was being slightly facetious when I said that strumming patterns "don't exist". But I thought that would be pretty obvious. Based on the comments, it was. My advice would only be misleading if you didn't understand what I was trying to describe about how the strumming patterns are created from the constant swinging of your arm, and the exact pattern can vary slightly from measure to measure without disturbing the rhythmic coherency of the song. Every song is different and some songs require a certain pattern to establish their iconic sound. For instance, when I play Big Mouth Strikes Again by the smiths, I always strum it exactly the way Johnny Marr does. But truthfully, as long as your arm is swinging constantly, you could make slight variations and nobody would ever notice. So, my point is is that it would be a mistake to focus on following an exact strumming pattern instead of just figuring out what the time signature is and Swinging your arm constantly to that meter and THEN let yourself arrive at whatever strumming pattern you play.