I can already play a few songs using the basic 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & pattern.
I was trying to learn “TV” by Billie Eilish, which has relatively easy chords and a flow that sounds really nice to my ear, but when I discovered the strumming pattern, that nice flow turned into frustration.
I play with the metronome set to the slowest possible tempo, around 30 bpm, but my brain just can’t process it. I tried counting out loud, but since English isn’t my native language (Portuguese is), counting actually makes it even harder.
I’ve tried metronomes that subdivide the beat into 16th notes, but that made it even worse.
The strumming pattern isn’t particularly difficult and the tempo is pretty slow, so I feel like this song shouldn’t be too far above my level. Also, there are lots of songs that use 16th notes, so I think it’s better to really get this down early.
By the way, I’m on Module 11, Grade 2.
It’s my first time posting here, so I’m not sure if I’m in the right place, but thanks anyway for the help!
If you are familiar with 8th note strumming (i.e. 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &), then you can just simply rewrite this bar of 16th note strumming as 2 bars of 8th note strumming. It would look like this:
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & | 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
D D D U | U D D D U
Set your metronome to 60 bpm and just learn the 2 bars of 8th note strumming. Learn the first bar first. Play it over and over until it comes naturally. Then learn the 2nd bar, and then play both together. (By the way, you can count in Portuguese if you like!)
Go back to Justin’s lesson on 16th note strumming and carefully work through it, including the example strumming patterns. If you can do those proficiently, then you can learn this one, for sure.
Thanks for the tips, I’ll definitely try them out.
If I use the 2 bars of 8 should I double the bpm to 140 ?
The problem with counting in Portuguese is that our ‘and’ is ‘e’, so you end up with something like ‘1 e e a 2’, which is pretty confusing for me , because the beats merge into words.
Yes, in the sense that is the tempo of the original song. However, you should consider that your end goal and start out much slower.
As for the counting, yeah, I understand. You may have to invent different syllables for the “e” and the “a”. Although, it’s probably easier to just learn and become comfortable with the English, lol.
Hi Hugo and welcome to our Community!
I’m working on the same pattern as yours at the moment. If you’re on Grade 2 you probably are not familiar with the 16th notes strumming yet.
First you need to get your hand used to that kind of feeling, it’s quite unlikely for you to nail strumming patterns if you skip that initial basic step.
I’d suggest you set the metronome at 50 bpm, 30bpm seems really slow to be able to keep your foot tapping: you need to focus on keeping the hand moving consistently and do all the 8downstrums and the 8upstrums 1e+a 2e+a 3e+a 4e+a. A further step will be keeping the wrist relaxed.
When you’re confident to keep the beat steady and tap your foot while doing all the strums - just give this some extra practice to be really confident - then the strumming pattern will come with just a bit of work (dropping beat 3 might be tricky at first) and no frustration at all.
Doubling the bpm was my beginner solution but…well you need to try and see for yourself how the feeling changes…it is really fine to experiment and see if and how it works.
You don’t mention whether you’re working on the strumming pattern while forming chords or fretting notes with the non-strumming hand or not… when learning a new to you strumming pattern, just mute the strings so that all you have to concentrate on is the pattern. You can even leave the metronome out at first - don’t even worry about tempo until you have the basic pattern down. THEN, start to add in the rhythm, start slowly & gradually increase the speed. THEN, add in the chords & don’t worry if you have to slow it down a bit again until you can get the chord changes literally “up to speed” !!!
Good luck!!!
It’s really tricky, but the worst part for me is the two extra strums between bars, because I’m so used to 8th notes that my hand kind of waits for the beat of the metronome after the first upstroke.
I can kind of play the pattern without the metronome, but as soon as I put it and hear the clicks, my brain just gets completely mixed up
Well in this case that would make it 140 bpm and my limit with the 8th notes is in the range of 110-120, i think its better to keep the tempo lower.
Yes, fortunately I developed that habit very early on, and whenever I try something new, I practice it with muted strings.
That’s kind of where I am right now. I can do the strumming pattern, but only by knowing there are 3 downstrokes, then 2 upstrokes, and then 3 downstrokes again. I’m trying to start counting out loud, but the vowels slow me down, so I might have to forget counting for now.
, because the beats merge into words.
