This lesson is vital to the strumming puzzle and your key to playing rockstar rhythm guitar. The full lesson is here!
I like doing the five minute at one speed strumming practice.
It is closer to what I would be doing playing a whole song.
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@Mark_in_NJ That’s a great way to view it. I often refer to the ability to play for that sustained burst as ‘song stamina’. A full song, from start to finish, and the physical and mental concentration required to play through rhythmically and in time with good chords and chord changes.
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I’ve been taking Justin Guitar lessons for about a year. I’m Grade 1, module 4. I know my eight open chords and a few strumming patterns but my strumming sounds nothing like yours. I’ve watched your videos on how to hold the pick. I struggle with upstrums sounding harsh, and sometimes while strumming I completely miss the guitar strings. Or the strumming starts out okay but as I speed up it sounds harsh. Practice makes permanent and I don’t want to develop bad habits that are hard to break. Any additional tips? Thanks.
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How thick is the pick you are using? Thinner is generally better for getting started with strumming, maybe 0.46 or 0.60mm
My other tip is about playing with a relaxed strumming hand and arm. Don’t have a death grip on the pick, get used to the pick moving a little between your thumb and finger. It might feel like you’ll drop the pick at first but stick with it
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In my experience anything takes way more time than expected…if you’re still working on Timing and Rhythm, tapping your foot and going nicely along with it then it would be normal that the sound you get out of the strings is not much pleasant to the ear. Keep going and follow Justin’s indications, work with a metronome, go along with original recordings, it’s such good practice, even and better if you strum on muted strings! Once your Timing and Rhythm will be solid, anything else will become easier. Hope it helps.
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Lots of good tips above but what worked for me was definitely using a thinner pick as well as angling my pick upwards on the up strum , and as a result almost gliding up the strings rather than catching them hard. I also focused on only hitting the thinnest strings on the up strum. Practice slowly and it will happen for you.
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@beckiarndt2003
You’ve had great advice here Becki.
Having a relaxed arm, hand, fingers in strumming is an important factor in your music sounding good.
If your upstrums are harsh, you may need to closely examine the angle of your arm and hand movement. It may be you are coming in to the strings too steeply and the pick is getting caught in-between so you are having to fight to keep it moving. You want to achieve upstrums (and downstrums too) that allow the pick to contact the strings but glide across the surface without diving in too deep in the gaps. This means a shallow arc of movement.
Would you feel okay recording and sharing a short video? It doesn’t have to be elaborate, a full song or anything like. Just 30+ seconds of you strumming a single chord would allow us to offer more specific help.
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