Hi people and thanks Xkooda for promoting my site
Strumming, as you have found, is not always blindingly obvious!
If you thimk about it , and you are obviously doing too much of that,..
you would realise that there are only 2 options Down (D) or Up(U) strums.
The way that you actually "strum" is the character of your playing or you could think of it as your "accent" i.e. how you speak (musically)
Put a load of monkeys in a room and they will come up with the chords for "Stairway to heaven" but it wouldn't sound right as they have no sense of timing (have you ever seen a monkey dancing ?!)
It is this (in built)"sense of timing†that we use to develop our strumming.
If you have no sense of timing "u would sound like a ro-bot when u talk pro-noun-cing ev-e-ry syl-a-ble the same "
so assuming you are not the robot from "lost in space" (yes i know , b4 ur time!"
then you can strum!
Reading strumming is like describing colours to a blind man, how would you describe "green?" You need to “hear†strumming not “read†strumming so that you can realise how it is supposed to sound.
When I started playing( just after we finished the ark!) I used “D†for down and “U†for up strums ,
which made perfect sense to me but of course only if “English†is your first language
and when I started teaching professionally it made perfect sense to me to continue with this,
after about 20 years the internet also started becoming a resource and suddenly there were lots of formats developing and becoming more mainstream, such as up & down arrows to denote strumming (not a bad thing but I hate them and can’t find them on my keyboard!) also tab and of course the armchair expert!
The Forum/chat room is the whole embodiment of the internet , empowered people helping each other (and for free)and great it is to!
However I get frustrated at some of the myths masquerading as fact that I read on the internet (only occasionally as I don’t bother to look most of the time)
This is usually posted by well-meaning people who only have their own experiences to draw on (what worked for them!)
An experienced Guitar teacher with a “track record†will advise you as to what works for most people
and will also be able to help if that doesn’t work for you (unlikely, but it happens)
and what to do if that is the case.
Please also understand that I am not criticising “Chordie†as I haven’t looked at the info available but only followed a link to my own site and ended up here in their forum!
If you want some advice (and it’s not compulsory!) think of the Internet as “The bloke down the pub†sometimes he is “full of useful info,†and sometimes he is just “full of it!â€ ï Š
I wish you all well in your playing and thanks again to Xkooda for promoting my site and if you want some more strumming information have a good look around this site and the info available but if you get stuck go here www.guitar.gg/strumming.html and I might be able to help you out
all the best and keep "Plonking"
Mark (The Real Hotdog!)
it's a long way to top if you wanna rock'n'roll
