Strumming Patterns - Lesson Five
Exercise Twenty One
This exercise carries on from number 20, all that's happening is that the missing downbeat has been moved from beat two to beat three. So you get the following. Down strum on beat one, up strum on the [and] of beat one, down strum on beat two, up strum on the [and] of beat two, this rings through beat three and you strum up again on the [and] of beat three. Exercise Twenty Two
Now we're back to mixing note values. For this exercise we have two eighth notes followed by a half note. So you get a down strum on beat one, an up strum on the [and] of beat one followed by a down strum on beat two which, being a half note, rings through beat three. Exercise Twenty Three
This exercise is a reversal of Ex.22 so that the half note is at the beginning of the bar. So you get a down strum on beat one which rings through beat two, followed by a down strum on beat three and finally an up strum on the [and] of beat three. All fairly straight forward if you've been following these exercises from the beginning. Ok on to Exercise Twenty Four
That's it for 3/4 time, now we're entering a new time signature. This is 6/8 time. This means you get six note values per bar and each of those note values is an eighth note. Normally you would emphasise the first beat of a bar, but with 8th note timings (6/8, 9/8, 12/8) you generally emphasise the first note of each three note section. So for 6/8 this means you would emphasise beats one and four. You'll spot on the notation above the tab that there is a small dot after each set of notes. This is because there isn't a note value for three notes. So the dot means take the value of the note before the dot, halve it and then add it onto the note duration. In this instance we're talking about a quarter note, half of that is an eighth note, so the dot is telling you to play that chord on beat one for the equivalent of three eighth notes (i.e. count one, two, three), then play again on beat four and again let that note ring for three eighth notes (four, five and six) which makes up the six eighth notes. Hence the time signature 6/8. These are all down strums so you just count from one to six and play on beats one and four. Exercise Twenty Five.
Just to consolidate the last exercise and the concept of 6/8 timing. With this exercise you play on beat one as with Ex. 24 so it lasts three beats, but then you play a down strum on each of the remaining beats of the bar. Note:- they are down strums because you're still play on the beat. You could, of course, also play an up strum between the down strum eighth notes (sixteenth note strumming, steady now). I'll cover that in more detail in a later lesson. As usual make that your timing is consistent and smooth and your chords ring out loud and clear (if you haven't already you will get fed up with me saying that, but it's soooooo important).
That's it for now, more to follow soon when I get some time. If you subscribe to my youtube channel or follow me on facebook or twitter you'll get advised when new lessons appear on my site.
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