Hi @chris_m I have listened to the song now and I hear it differently to Dave @Dave_Birnie and john @jjw. I hear the verses as 16-th note strumming with strong accents on the backbeats (that’s 2 and 4). For the chorus she ups the accents a bit - it still is 16th note strumming with accents on backbeats but twice the tempo, so accents at 1a, 2a, 3a and 4a. Then back to slightly slimmer strumming for the next verse. Let me see if I can write this out here.
Verse:
> >
1 e a e 2 e a e 3 e a e 4 e a e
D D d u D d u D d u
I’ve used large and small letters to show which strums are more important (and are played louder / stronger). Those are actually all the main 1-2-3-4 beats, with the additional accents on the 2 and 4. She hardly plays any strums ever on the 1e, 2e, 3e and 4e, but she plays additional audible down-up strums on 2a and 2ae and the same on the 3a and 3ae and 4a and 4ae. But they are played softer. That then adds layers to the strumming.
For the 16th note strumming its important that you have continuous arm movemement, even when you are not planning to hit any strings (like on the 1a). That is the basis for varying up the pattern a bit throughout the verses, but I would try variations only once you can hold a repeating pattern with accents alwasy in the right place etc. For example Natalie sometimes also plays strums on the 1a (just not in the very first bars of the first verse) and sometimes she drops down strums (but never the ones on 2 or 4 as far as I can hear) and plays a string of 3 up strums on the -e-'s.
The strum at the start of the song is btw the up strum on the 4eae - the second strum is the down strum on beat 1 of the first bar.
Chorus:
The strumming in the chorus gets busier, and I clearly hear her throwing in extra accents in a few bars on the 1a and then the next -a- beats, although she does not keep it up beyond a few bars and then reverts back to the main accents on the backbeats 2 and 4. This would look like something like this (although her strumming is loose in the sense there is no fixed repeat patter of which and how many up strums she hits etc)
> > > >
1 e a e 2 e a e 3 e a e 4 e a e
D D d u D u d D d u D u
Changing where to put accents between verse and chorus is a tricky business, so you could just play the chorus with keeping accents on 2 and 4 and just play a few more strums, or just add the accent on the 1a - that one really stands out from me because it changes the groove from “1 - accent on 2” to “1 - accent on a - 2” and creates the illusion that the tempo doubles up (which it doesn’t of course - its smoke and mirrors!).
Hope that gives you some more ideas. And I agree with Hec, lovely song! Share a recording with us when you have it down!
. So with this song what you could do is play along with the recording and use the following pattern: