Chords for Five strum patterns that will work for almost any song

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Hi there, I'm Jamie Anderson.
I've been playing the guitar for over 40 years and teaching for many years
And I've probably taught a couple thousand people how to play the guitar and the question that students very often
Ask me is how do I know what strum pattern to choose for a song in this tutorial?
I'm going to teach you five different strum patterns
[G] And chances are pretty good that one of those strong patterns are going to work for almost any song that you want to [N] do
There's two different groups of strum patterns the first three strum patterns are in 4-4
And that's going to work for almost any song
But then there's a small number of songs that won't quite fit and you're going to want to try one of the two in the second
Category which is 3-4 or waltz time now even if you know nothing about counting rhythm or music theory
After a while you will be able to hear the difference between 4-4 and 3-4 if you need additional [G] assistance
I do teach via Skype and in my home studio in Ottawa [B] Canada the address is [C#] below
[G] So let's get started with the different strum patterns.
I'm going to play a G chord and show you the first strum pattern down down down down
So try that with me ready and down down up down down up down
down up down down _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ That one works well for blowing the wind
[C] _ _ _ _ [Em] _ [D] _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _
_ [C] The _ [Em] _ [D] _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ _ next _ _ strum pattern works really well for country music and it sounds like this bass down bass down
Some people call this a boom Chuck strum
So try this with me on a G chord ready and bass down bass down boom
_ And _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
that works really well on this [D] song _ rolling my sweet baby's arm
_ Rolling my sweet [Em] [A] baby's arm
[Em] I'm gonna [D] lay around the shack [G] till the train comes back
[D]
[G] Rolling [A] my sweet [Em] [D] baby's arm
_ And _ then the third strum in [D#] this category is on a G chord [G] down down up up down up
So that's two down two up and then down up now between the two up strokes
It's going to be a tiny little pause.
[N] So let's try that on a G chord.
I'm going to slow it down ready and
[G] down down up up
Down up down down up up down up _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Good, so you want to practice these drum patterns so [B] much that your right hand doesn't even know what it's doing
It just becomes automatic.
So that's the [Cm] first group of strums the ones that work with 4 [G]-4
Now we're going to look at the second group of strums that work well with 3-4
[N] The first one I'm going to show you is this I'm going to show [C] you on a C chord
down down down up down down down up
So try that with me ready and down down down up down down down up
_ _ All _ _ _ _ right, this one works really [B] well on House of the Rising [Am] Sun
_ _ _ _ _ The _
_ [C] _ _ _ [Em] _ [D] _ _ _
[F] _ _ [Am] _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
[E] _ _ next _ _ _ _ _ one [C] I'm going to show you is very similar _
Again on a C chord down down up down up down down up down up _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ This one will work well on [N] a Piano Man
_ [C] _ _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ [C] _ I [F] _
_ _ _ [C] _ [D] _ _ [G] _ _
should _ _ _ _ _ rewrite that one
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _
[Am] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ [Em] My apologies to [Dm] Billy Joel
I'm just going to have to write my own song
[Em] Alright to summarize
[G] Almost any song you want to do is going to work with one of these five terms that I just showed [C] you in the first
category the 4-4 strums
[G] _
down down up down down up or
boom chuck boom chuck or
down down up up down up
If it's three-quarter time or waltz time what might work is down down down up down down down up or
down down up down up down down up down up
So if you'd like further instruction, you can contact [N] me at the address below.
I'd be happy to teach you via Skype
I've also got other tutorials online
I travel for workshops and you can come to my home studio in Ottawa Canada and learn from me personally
_ So oh also go to jamieanderton.com you can see the stuff I do.
I'm a performer.
I'm a writer