The joy of strumming

Kurtis

stufisher said:

Seagull by Bad Company ... simple, effective, great to just play and enjoy. Always loved it, always will ... and I do still play it regularly  

Enjoyed that, thanks! 


Wish you were here is a nice easy one. 

bertie

ooh,  the intro to "Till the day I die"  is a nice little dittie

thomasross20

Always loved the intro to this:

JEM

Tannin said:

Sadly, I've waved goodbye to strumming. I don't use a pick at all these days. The closest I come (and I do this a lot) is a downward strum with the back of my nails. But with fingerpicking, the direction of a stroke is pretty much fixed, you can't really down/up/down, for example. 

I upward strum with the back of my thumbnail which means keeping my wrist very floppy (a bit like flamenco but without the technique or talent). I just started doing it when I first started playing and didn't really think about it.

I've since had other players tell me it's weird ;-)

DavidR

JEM said:

Tannin said:

Sadly, I've waved goodbye to strumming. I don't use a pick at all these days. The closest I come (and I do this a lot) is a downward strum with the back of my nails. But with fingerpicking, the direction of a stroke is pretty much fixed, you can't really down/up/down, for example. 

I upward strum with the back of my thumbnail which means keeping my wrist very floppy (a bit like flamenco but without the technique or talent). I just started doing it when I first started playing and didn't really think about it.

I've since had other players tell me it's weird ;-)

Nothing you can do on any guitar is ever weird. Unusual maybe yes, but not weird. Half the fun surely.

:-)

Kilgore

DavidR said:

JEM said:

Tannin said:

Sadly, I've waved goodbye to strumming. I don't use a pick at all these days. The closest I come (and I do this a lot) is a downward strum with the back of my nails. But with fingerpicking, the direction of a stroke is pretty much fixed, you can't really down/up/down, for example. 

I upward strum with the back of my thumbnail which means keeping my wrist very floppy (a bit like flamenco but without the technique or talent). I just started doing it when I first started playing and didn't really think about it.

I've since had other players tell me it's weird ;-)

Nothing you can do on any guitar is ever weird. Unusual maybe yes, but not weird. Half the fun surely.

:-)

Yes.

Nothing wrong with unconventional.

bertie

JEM said:

I upward strum with the back of my thumbnail which means keeping my wrist very floppy 

that's weird

BigPaulie

I'm a (flat)picker and also use hybrid picking a fair bit.

For me, the absolute pinnacle of what an acoustic guitar should sound like is Don McLean's (no-one's 100% sure) D-28/OM-21 on the "American Pie" album.

This is a fun song to play:


And if you get into a little more ambitious picking territory, try this on for size:


And here's a ubiquitous strumming number in Drop

Kilgore

A lot of the early acoustic blues players had a strumming/picking hybrid that could best be described as 'flailing'.

Son House:

Alterlifeson

BigPaulie said:

I'm a (flat)picker and also use hybrid picking a fair bit.

And if you get into a little more ambitious picking territory, try this on for size:

Fantastic album. A great intro to Bluegrass. 

sir_strumalot

Alterlifeson said:

Fantastic album. A great intro to Bluegrass. 

Indeed. 'Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' is my favourite strumming tune.

guitarjack66

Alterlifeson said:

BigPaulie said:

I'm a (flat)picker and also use hybrid picking a fair bit.

And if you get into a little more ambitious picking territory, try this on for size:

Fantastic album. A great intro to Bluegrass. 

Looks like a Northern Irish Coronation Street character on a night out!