Hey Justin! Been following you for many years; I want to say thank you for your lessons; also jamming with a friend got me re-invigorated and inspired me to get better and more serious about my playing. Really appreaciate all of the lessons and knowledge you have imparted!
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hey love the sound this makes so Iām practicing it
(great description btw, I tried getting this sound before and I wasnāt getting close on my own)
I find myself doing the muted stroke a few inches forward and the DU back at bit in an S ā¦ itās gonna take me while.
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Nice Andy. You will be very happy you spent solid time on this technique. It will pay large dividends in the future for sure. Itās one of the techniques that you will find is huge in many different types of music from folk to punk, and reggae to country.
Be patient with your self, have fun with it and your right it does sounds killer.
Edit
Oh and welcome to the community Andy, we are glad you found your way here.
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I am liking doing this with finger strumming: I use my fleshy thumb on the downstream, fleshy index on upstrum, and for the hits, pretend I am using a pick so nail part of index finger does the hit. Hope this helps someone out there.
Hello to everyone,
Iām experiencing an issue while doing this beautiful backbeat hit: the plectrum tends to slip away, so after a while Iām grabbing a shorter part of it 
I tried to grab it a bit harder but this lowers my sensitivity.
Have anyone else experienced the same problem? And how did you solve? Are picks with a hard grip a solution?
Thank you very much in advance!
I have not experienced what you describe. I notice I tend to strike with a little more angle on the pick so it skims across the top of the strings a bit easier. You are probably muting the strings with your picking palm and changing the angle you are coming in with the pick. See if you can look for that and make some adjustment.
So far, I have not found that a grippy pick is the solution. It can help with poor attack angle, but it is a bandage and the real problem is the angle you are striking the strings at. One day I can have no trouble and the next I canāt hold the same pick straight. That is always my strumming, not the pick.
As with a lot of guitar techniques I find that answer is just to relax. No special picks, grips or anything.
When I first tried this method it felt like I was going to lose my pick all the time but as I got more familiar and relaxed the problem went away. I donāt do anything special with my pick, donāt grip it for dear life. When you grip a pick tightly you introduce tension into your hand and in turn into your arm which will only do bad things for your rhythm and sound.
So my boring answer is relax and practice - itās a new technique, you wonāt master it in 5 minutes
If people are looking for a song where to practice, i suggest Ayo Technology from Milow (the tempo is quiet fast, but starting slowly makes it work
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I just started this lesson last night. Iām doing it on an electric and at the moment Iām getting it right about 50% of the time and hope soon to improve on that and then speed it up.
Lots of helpful comments in this thread. I just read through the thread to try and get some song ideas where I can try it. Probably will try stuck in the middle with you.
Coincidentally, Justin just posted a new song lesson a couple of days ago. Messy by Lola Young. Itās an easy grade 1 song with 2 chords but Justin uses the percussive backbeat to great effect. I like the song a lot but as Justin says, as 50 year old man he feels a bit silly singing this one. Iām 61 and feel even sillier but it is an easy introduction to using this technique.
Would love to know what other songs people found this technique useful for, other than those mentioned above.
Best, Ian
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I learned this techinque because I saw someone doing it on āHave You Ever Seen The Rainā by CCR and it seemed a good way to make plain cowboy chords sound a bit more interesting
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Hey Ian
I was just working on Plush by Stone Temple Pilots and the whole Verse sequence uses the percussive hit.
The other good song that has a good back beat is the Coldplay song Dont Panic. Nice rythem with a back beat.
Justin has lessons on both.
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Welcome to the community. Glad you found it.
Thanks for the suggestions. I donāt know either of those songs. Iāll have a look at the lessons.
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