Chords for Kimo Hussey Ukulele Video Series: Strumming Patterns

_ Hello, hello, I'm Kimo Hussie and this is Zanuck Lindsey.
Zanuck is my partner in
craft.
What we do is do concerts and workshops together and this morning
session we'd like to _ talk about a question that was posed to to us by
Sharon Braverman who lives in New Jersey and the question was how do you fit a
strumming pattern into the song you're playing.
So that's what Zanuck and I are
going to talk about.
Zanuck in my mind when we talk about fitting a strumming
pattern into the song, that was the question.
Yes, absolutely.
The song already has a built-in
internal rhythm that you can draw from as far as accompanying yourself.
It can be very basic, it doesn't have to be complicated in fact it
shouldn't be.
That would get in the way of the beauty of the melody.
Yes, and one of the things I like about what you're saying is that I like to
tell people that the right hand in a rhythm has five separate and distinct
responsibilities.
Melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, and harmonics.
So if we take care of melody and harmony that in and of itself, like you said, kind of like assumes the rhythm that will identify that song.
Okay, so with regard to technique, one of the things I like to do is just assign a
strum or a pick to the melody of the song.
For example, in Old To Joy, Old To Joy, if
I just take this is the melody [Ebm] and _ [E] _ _ _
[Gbm] _ _ [Gb] _ _ [Fm] I'll just use my thumb and strum down with a
downward pick of the melody.
_ [C] _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ [D] _ _ _ Now if I just play the right chords, I need not [Ab] worry
that the harmony will be correct.
So what I'll do is just play the right chords, F
and C7 in this [Gb] situation, and just continue to strum down, thumb only, to the
melody.
And [F] here's what I have. _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
[Am] _ _ [Eb] _ Notice I didn't take like an external
strumming pattern and try to apply it to this song.
All I did was to follow the
melody.
Right.
What do you think about that, buddy?
Well, that's a great place to
start [E] and for a lot of people to end, [N] because right there you have spoken the
purest beauty of that song.
And anything in addition to that, you have to be
careful about, because you don't want to clutter the _ composer's intention.
And he
didn't hear all of these crazy strums when he wrote the song.
So you have to be
aware of those things when you're playing music in general.
_ _ _ Stylistically, just remember one thing.
If we take a lot of the songs that we
already know and do nothing more than slow them down and soften them down and
just apply a strum to each _ note of the melody, it's gonna stand you in
good stead.
Let me give another example.
When I used the [F] thumb, it was thumb down.
So if I take that same song _ _ _ and rather than thumb down [Eb] to get the melody, I use
the forefinger and pluck up to get the melody.
Here's what I have.
_ _ [Ebm] _ _ _ [F] _ _ [C] _
_ _ So the chords are going to be the same and in that situation, in order to get
the harmony, what I'm going to do is just brush down with the [F] thumb.
Brush down
with the thumb.
So what I have is kind of a clipper movement.
So the [Eb] thumb is going to be the
harmony.
I don't have to worry about that.
Just brush down because the chords, the
chords will make the harmony right and I'm going to get the melody.
So the [F] head, _ _ [C] _ _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ [G] thumb down.
[F] _ _ _
[C] _ _ [D] _ _ [Fm] _ _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Gb] Remember, if we're talking about rhythm, I should say rhythm, it's just one of the five things that
so have _ _ balance in your music and if you focus on rhythm, that's fine.
But remember,
there are four other things that comprise action with that right hand.
Again, melody, harmony.
[Eb] _ _ _
_ [E] Closing thoughts Mark?
Let's play that song!
Okay.
_ [C] _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [F] _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ [Fm] _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ _ [A] _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ [F] _ _ [G] _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _