"On the beats" pattern - do you strum EVERY beat?

Beginner Grade 1 Module 5: Basic Theory & Strumming Development
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Hey, I’ve been using this app/site for about a year or so when I picked a guitar up for the literal first time of my life, currently on Grade 1, kinda between modules 5 and 6 (yeah I’m slow learner I know. I spent a lot of time struggling with my strumming, which I still do to an extent, but that’s not the point here.

What I’ve been wondering lately is that in the app in the play along feature there are songs that are marked under the “on the beats” strumming patter and the diagram for it shows a down strum for every of the 4 beats. “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran comes to mind right now. So my question is, does that literally mean doing a downstream every single beat? Or only on those beats where there is a chord circle shown in the app? Cus on hand the diagram shows every beat but a lot of the songs with that pattern sound awful when I strum like that, instead of only hitting the beats that are marked with chords.

So yeah, what do I make of this?

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Great question, i am new as well so i too am waiting for the answer

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Hi @999avatar999, first of all: you are free to use whichever strumming pattern sounds good to you - there’s no right or wrong. As you’re in module 5-6, you’ve already learned ‘old faithful’. You could try that one, see how it sounds?

The strumming patterns in the app are suggestions. They can be simplified compared to the original to make them feasible for beginners. When starting out, you indeed do 1 strum per bar, on the first beat (where the chord is indicated in the app). Strumming once per bar gives you more time to change between chords and to time your strum correctly. However, you have to learn a couple of things, like keeping rhythm, more complicated strumming patterns and changing more quickly between chords. That’s where four downstrums, on all four beats, come in: it forces you to keep a rhythm and to change more quickly. It’s also a step up towards more complicated strumming patters. You’re right that just doing 4 down strums won’t sound all that great for most songs, but it’s just a transition.

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