Strumming is a guitar playing technique that every guitar player should master. Even those who learned and play mostly by reading music notes, should learn to play by strumming, and play it very well.
That way, they will certainly add richness and variety to the song or piece they play. Further more, they will surely come to a time when they are required to strum the chords of a song or melody that others are singing or playing.
The most important thing to take into account when learning and playing guitar strumming, is sound quality. Strumming is not just some noise made while others are singing or playing. It is music too!
You must focus all your efforts on getting the most clean, neat and musical sound out of your guitar.
You strum a guitar strings by stroking all or several strings in a single downward or upward right hand movement.
Sometimes you strum all six strings with a single quick movement. Sometimes you just strum the bass strings, and sometimes you strum only the treble ones.
Some guitar players, when strumming downwards, like to use the nail of the middle finder; others like to use the nails of all fingers (except the thumb). Generally, they also prefer to do upward strumming using the nail of their thumb finger.
But there are many players that like the sounds obtained when strings are plucked or strummed using the fingertips (fleshy part of the finger end).
The best form (and that used by most pros), is a combination of both forms, nails and fingertips, combining them in upward and downward strokes, on all six strings or bass or treble strings only.
Besides, not all strokes are played with the same strength (intensity). Some of them are accented (played louder) than others.
This way, you can achieve very colourful and rich guitar strumming patterns.
A strumming pattern is a repeated sequence of upward and downward strokes, each one of them with its own characteristics (nail of fingertip, upward or downward, accented or not).
You can learn guitar strumming patterns yourself by reading and practicing guitar lessons and books. In that case you must listen very carefully to recordings of music with some guitar strumming showing up. You will certainly learn a lot, too, watching videos about guitar strumming. Go to YouTube, do a search, and you will find a lot of them.
Remember, quality of sound is your goal.
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