How do you replace strumming with picking? For example if I am doing 4/4 all down strumming on the D chord I strum down 4 times at whatever tempo but say I wanted to pick that instead? Might be in a future lesson I’m sure. Thanks.
I might be misunderstanding this but if you’re replacing 4 down strums with picking then the simplest version of this would be to play 4 notes from the chord, 1 for each beat. You typically start with the root note (so the open D string in the case of a D chord) and then 3 other notes from the chord. You might just play each string in order or potentially mix the order up a bit to make it sound more interesting
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I’d wait till ya run across it in Justin’s lessons seeing that your doing 4 beats per measure all down strokes on the beat.
That said.
You can pick out any of them 4 tones of the D chord anywhere ya want. Ya can pick 1st and 3rd string at the same time too, pick them in any order. And not just 1st and 3rd strings. Any two will do. Or. Any three. Or any combo of the D chord tones. Ya can do eighth notes on any of them 4 strings. Two notes played within 1 beat. Then any combo of them notes. The sky is the limit with imagination. To me, it’s what makes up music.
fwiw. I’m trying to learn to do this and it ain’t easy and I ain’t good at it either, but I try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I’m trying to learn fire and rain by James Taylor. Best I can tell, it’s all finger picking. Take a look at these tabs. This is what I think your talking about. The way I see it is all them notes fall within a chord. ie. the first note is open A and B on the third string, sliding up to C#. B and C# are part of the A scale. The second note is note A on the high E string, played on the 5th fret. A ‘A’ note. the root note of a A chord. Third note is E. Still a part of the A scale. So on and so forth.
My explanation may be way off, but that’s the way I’m interpreting picking individual notes to play a song.
I’m very sure this is covered within Justin’s teachings (think I’m in the middle of grade 3 and he’s touched on finger picking a little bit by the time I reached this grade), but only a little. I think there is much more to come. And if you get to the point where that’s what he’s teaching, I’m guessing it will make sense by that point of the learning adventure.
Finger picking is way above playing 4 down strokes on each beat of 4/4. But to me, it is a very worthy goal and I have this goal too. I ain’t there by any sense of the word. Practice makes perfect I assume.
Last thing I’ll say is. When playing a song, I may just put in one picked note, here or there. Usually within the scale of the chord I’m playing. It’s just a matter of finding the note I want to insert within the 4/4 time and where to put it so it’s in time.
I sure Justin explains this much better than me. Sorry I don’t know where that lesson is within his teachings. Myself. I’m just playing around with the idea at this point, but thought I’d pass along what I’m learning while just trying to learn to play this song or that song that I want to play that has finger picking within said song. Like fire and rain. Right now, I can’t play this song at all. I just looked up the tabs today. The way that song looks to me, It’ll be a year before I might have a slight grasp of it.
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If you mean picking a chord note on each of the four beats then you have some good advice already.
Picking the notes of a chord one at a time is called arpeggiating the chord.
You can do all down picks but there are other ways too which mixed down and up picks.
Justin does teach it further down the line.
Are you wanting to learn it for a specific reason or a certain song?
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The great thing about picking is there are really no “wrong answers”. There are patterns you can learn but, as long as you are fretting the chord correctly, any of the strings in the chord will sound cool and you can play them in whatever order you like.
If you’re holding down a normal open D chord then you can use the top 4 strings. Like Matt said, most often you’d hit the root note on the first beat of the bar. From there you can just run straight up the strings one at a time, or up and then back down, or skip strings, or play multiple strings together. It’s all good.
If you play around and try different stuff at random you will start to settle on patterns that you like and that sound nice with the song you’re playing. My advice is don’t overthink it.
Richard @rmorballl
My fire and rain example seemed kinda elusive for a example of picking notes out.
Perhaps this one is better.
Greensleeves. Complete with Justin teaching you the song + a pdf tab w/ notes (click under resorces to find the pdf).
Seems to show better that the chords being played. Then which notes to pick out to play individually.
Good luck.