Strumming with chord changes in the middle of a bar

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Hi All…this is my first post so forgive me if I’ve made it in the wrong place but here’s my current difficulty…
Strumming down strums with the beat is pretty straightforward but also a bit boring, particularly with the BPM turned down (I’m using the app). However, trying to finding a strumming pattern that I can use with chord changes on the 1st and 3rd beat is proving to be a challenge, for example on Chocolate Jesus or Eleanor Rigby. Can anyone offer a nice easy alternative to boring down strums only please?

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Hi Paul Welcome to the Community.

Have you tried slowing the tempo down until you can get the chord changes on point ? This is a good approach when things may be a little too quick for you. Once you get the changes in time, albeit at a slower place, gradually increase the speed until you get to the original tempo. You will come across this with many things where the desired tempo is just out of reach, even with licks or riff not just chord progressions. And the advice I received here for many years, was slow it down, get it right, speed it up (gradually).

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Toby
:sunglasses:

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Paul @PaulRM
First of all welcome to community :grinning::notes::guitar:
Not sure how far through the journey you are but like you I got bored with four down strums and started to use “ old faithful”
I have two songs I have of the five I am working on for Grade 1 that have a change on beat 3.
The first is Bad Moon Rising, if you go to Justin’s lesson on the song the pattern is DDDUDU. Bad Moon Rising Easy Guitar Lesson | Creedence Clearwater Revival - YouTube
The other one The Last Time by the Stones which is in the app has Old Faithful DDU UD. On OF I make the change on the missed D
Both songs are on the app but making the change half way through a pattern takes some practice.
Hope this is what you were after.
Michael

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I just tried Chocolate Jesus and Eleanor Rigby to see what emerged (other than I need to work on my Dm chord :slight_smile: )

For Chocolate Jesus , I liked all down, palm muted 8th note strums. Justin covers this in one of the lessons, but don’t remember which one.

That seemed to work with Eleanor Rigby as well, but I varied it up with some 1/4 note strums which I let ring.

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Continuing the discussion from Strumming with chord changes in the middle of a bar:

Hey Toby…thanks for the quick response. I’ve certainly tried slowing down the tempo but perhaps not enough to be able to concentrate on the strumming pattern rather than the chords. I have tried various strumming patterns though in the practice sections but haven’t as yet been able to incorporate those into the songs with any great success!
Cheers, Paul

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Spot on Mat1953. I’ll give that a go.

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Thanks Tbushell… I’m just on the 5th lesson in Beginner 1 so I haven’t seen that lesson yet. I’ll have another go when I get to it!
Cheers

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Mid bar chord changes are tricky as you’re only playing two strum on each. Somewhere along your journey to learn guitar it wont be a problem and you’ll be able to play a strumming pattern and switch chords without noticing it…however until then I’d play a strumming pattern like old faithful for most of the bars and then just for the bar where you have two chords switch back to down strums. It should work fine.

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Hey Rossco…great advice! I’ll give that a go.
Cheers, Paul