My Strumming Practice Tip

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Here’s a great way to practice different strumming patterns and learn a song at the same time.
If you have either of Justin’s Beginner Songbooks pick a song you want to learn. The strumming pattern is written there for you. Next set your metronome to the correct bpm. If you have Volume II the bpm is there for you top left corner. For Book I you’ll have to search out the bpm on the inter webs.
When you get to the strumming part of your practice routine you’re all set. Turn on the metronome and go.

If you have the songs app you can then do the same thing when you get the that part of your practice routine. Having the metronome running at the correct bpm is a big help.

I’ve found it’s great for learning new strumming patterns.

Anyway - I hope that helps someone. It’s pretty straight forward but it took me until today to apply it to my practice.

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Good suggestion SmokeyBlu and it reiterates Justin’s message that learning songs is the aim of the game and it should be incorporated in your practice from the start (all be it the songs wont necessarily sound like they should early on).

The big advantage I found of incorporating songs is that you are less focussed on the mechanics and therefore that “muscle memory” tends to kick in a little more. Also if you want to really learn a song then you’ve got to do what you are doing!

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Never really thought of doing that. Great idea! To me its tough enough to get the chord swaps. If I get the strum down pat then i can work on getting the chird swaps down.