Strumming Patterns.

guitarjack66

Should we less experienced players ignore these and take them with a pich of salt or try to stick to them? I ask because,with experience,I'm finding I am discovering my own patterns which seem to sound much closer to what I am trying to play versus the many online tabs and chord charts.

Mattharrier

Ultimately, what your strum hand is doing is more important than what your fret hand is doing - you can play all the fancy chords you like, if you can't do it in time, it won't sound good!

Some songs have a particular pattern, but with others a particular pattern is less important. You can get by with only a few basic patterns (down down down down; down up down up down up down up; down, down up, up down up (the "island strum, and ideal for lots of things); down down down down up are a few that will work for a huge amount of songs), so work on those to begin with, but definitely listen to a song and try to work out what works best. Bad Moon Rising is an example - you can use the same pattern all the way through, but if you emphasise the  "I See" with a down strum each before going into your pattern, it works a little better, but is still fairly simple to learn.

Any kind of pattern you find online is going to need some tweaking, as it's very difficult to notate strumming patterns. Youtube is a good place to learn specific songs, and the person doing the video will show you how to play the pattern that they have decided is the "right" one for the song (although you'll often hear them say that they aren't sure exactly what the original artist was doing and this is the closest they can get, or that it's played differently live to in the studio, so everything is open to interpretation). You will start to develop a feel for things and will be able to come up with something that works for whatever you want to play.

So in short - both! Learn specific patterns, but always experiment and come up with your own.

Roland

There’s a time for learning strumming patterns, and that’s when a song needs a pattern which you don’t currently know. The last place I’d look for patterns is internet TABs because they’re so often wrong. Instead watch live performances, then play what sounds right to you. 

Devil#20

The Bad Moon Rising pattern mentioned above is a good one to get under your belt because you have to combine it with palm muting to get it to sound right. CCR us it a lot. The other things about patterns is you shouldn't play it the same all the way through. Stick to the basic pattern but throw in the odd up or down in there or push a chord at the end of the bar so it sounds more 'organic'.

Then remember you have all those other weird time signatures like 6/8 and 5/4 and 3/4 and 16th strumming n that. Listen to a song and try and work out what pattern they are using. You'll often find they alternate between 2 patterns each bar or partway through a song. When you think you've worked it out go and compare it with a musical score and see if you were correct. 

There's quite a good book on the subject called rithm rhythem rithem rythmn guitar 365 by Troy Nelson that takes you through the whole subject. It's about 300 pages long so it'll keep you busy. 

Lestratcaster

I think its important the right hand locks in with what the drums are doing (if there's drums on the track). Downstrums should normally occur on the down-beat, and upstrums on the off-beat (the '+' of the beat of the bar). Sometimes you'll have to strum the same direction twice, or alternate, sometimes you'll miss a string (a tied pattern) etc etc. If you can hear the rhythm or tap it on the guitar then you can generally play it.