6 months in, I’ve scanned Justin’s lessons and pretty much the whole of the internet and nobody does a video on this. I’ve also got an acoustic which I don’t play much but it’s easy, learn the pattern and strum away. However the electric is hard to strum. It’s easy to get harsh noises, sometimes you can hear too much jangling from the strings acoustically if you dig into the strings aggressively and that becomes distracting from the amp sound.
I’ve found you can either hold the pick with more showing and very loose, and hit the surface of the strings, which gives a quite metallic and combined sound between the notes. Or you can choke up on the pick and ‘drag’ it through the strings so you hear the notes slightly more individually. But this way it’s very easy to get harsh strums and a lot of acoustic noise as you’re pinging the strings by digging in with the pick, rather than grazing the surface as in the first way.
Overall I really can’t settle on a way to strum electric and it’s my biggest sticking point, has anyone come across any detailed material on this?
you generally don’t want to have too many strings active if you have the distortion up on the amp. This can be a part of your harsh sound. Try cleaning up the amp and see if you hear what you like.
Also, at 6 months in, you may not have seen the lesson on string muting. I forget where that is in the lessons, but on electric, you will want to learn how to quiet strings you do not want ringing. You will get strings ringing from sloppy strumming or picking as well as sympathetic resonance, like playing A at string 4, fret 7, and exciting open string 5 even though you never touched it. The goal would be to mute string 5. There are a lot of resonances on string 6 I run into.
Hi guys thanks for replies. I’m using neck pickup only for these type of songs. I’m also playing clean on the amp. Think jeff Buckleys style is what I’m trying to achieve with these songs. No issues with distortion and power chords, they sound exactly as I’d expect. I’m mostly correctly muting the unwanted strings. It’s more the actual technique of how you should hit the strings that I just can’t find the right way. Strumming with my thumb sounds nice and mellow but can’t really up strum properly with the thumb only, so I’m trying to get it right with a pick for proper rhythm playing.
I don’t play acoustic or classical, but I do play finger style electric.
some more ideas:
try using the pad of your first or second finger for the up-strums
turn the treble or presence down a bit on the amp. I like to filter out the super-high frequencies on my setup.
more flexible pick (not my choice but it is an option). nylon has a softer sound
You already mentioned the softer grip and length sticking out. This is what I use with a slightly more flexible pick, but not as soft as a thin nylon. When I am strumming across all strings, I also angle the pick more, so it is more like skipping across the top of the strings. I reverse the angle with a wrist rotation for the up-strum. I also grip a little softer unless I want a lot of volume.
A good exercise is to mute ALL of the strings (keep the amp on if you want) and to practice just strumming.
You’ll get a very percussive sound, but that’s really what you are after. Note that this percussive sound is actually a key part of many famous guitar riffs.
but the aim of this is to get used to strumming the electric guitar, varying your intensity and power, how much you angle the pick, and also try different pick shapes, materials and thicknesses.
I would suggest spending 3 to 5 mins each day (or each practice session) doing this. At the same time, you can practice different drumming patterns.
Hi, this may not apply to you at all, but when I first got an electric guitar, after being an acoustic strummer for some time, it took me a while to realize that electric guitar is generally used very differently from the acoustic. It’s less common to strum full chords, especially with open strings on an electric. I had to change my mindset to some degree when trying to play rhythm on electric guitar.
I video that deals with this aspect can be found here:
As I say, this not be your issue at all, so take it for what it’s worth.
John @jjw, this looks quite interesting! I’ve been working on modifying my strumming on electric - ugh, some of the sounds I currently make! He got me starting out with Fame then later said “We’re going to play a bunch of Bowie riffs”…well, I have to watch it just for that! Bookmarked for tomorrow when I have more time. Thanks for sharing.
Here is a video firstly strumming super light, touching individual strings, I made a lot of mistakes in this part but to me sounds more acceptable than the next 2: strumming with a loose grip, then finally strumming harder and digging in. None of them sound remotely good to me. I can play lovely fingerstyle but strumming has totally frustrated me.
