Welcome back to our 5-day absolute beginner email course! Today we’ll be trying to tackle one of the most difficult concepts for beginners, strumming in time with rhythm.
Luckily, throughout this course, we’ve already been laying a good foundation to give you the best shot at getting the hang of this relatively smoothly if you’re willing to put in the work and practice.
Ok, let’s get started.
So on day 2 of the course, we spent the entire lesson just listening to rhythm and listening for the beats in songs in 4/4 time. Today we’re going to take those concepts and add the strumming technique that we worked on yesterday to start strumming in time.
So far you’ve just been counting 1, 2, 3, 4 to songs. To add a little more musical terminology to your vocabulary, these are technically called quarter notes. Pretty easy, 4 / 4 timing, each beat is 1/4th of the measure so each beat is a quarter note.
Using everything you learned so far, the proper way to hold the ukulele, foot tapping, the strumming technique and strumming sweet spot, using your pointer finger and only down strums, let’s try to play the ‘C’ chord (the chord you learned in lesson 1) on ever beat.
When you strum down, your foot should be tapping the ground at the exact same time. You can go about this slowly but I want you to strum with each tap of the foot.
Hopefully, that wasn’t too bad. One thing you may or may not have noticed, to strum the next down strum on beat, your finger actually travels up above the strings in between the numbers to get ready for the next beat.
That time your hand spent traveling back up isn’t just wasted space, it’s actually what’s called an eighth note. This is how it’s typically written,
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
When we write it like that, the numbers become eighth notes as well because there are now 8 beats in a measure.
Now, what does all this musical jargon have to do with playing the ukulele? This idea of eighth notes is the basis for strumming in rhythm for any song, with any strumming pattern.
Here’s how it works.
All ‘down strums’ happen on the numbers.
All ‘up strums’ happen on the &s
There can never just be a number, there is always a number and an &. They work in pairs.Yin and Yang, Night and Day, up and down strum.
Let’s give it a shot,
Get the foot tapping and count out…
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
your foot should be on the ground for the numbers and off the ground during the &s. Think of it like an on off switch.
Now let’s add the strumming. Down strums on the numbers, up-strums on the &s, keep that foot tapping to keep the beat.
Remember, with strumming, you’re not moving your arm much, its all in the wrist. Shake that thermometer! It might help to think that your foot and your hand are traveling together and when your foot is traveling down, so is your finger. Go ahead at try it at different tempos. Try it fast for a few measures, then try to slow it down for a few measures. All the while, making sure you keep your foot tapping consistent and in time.
I know this can be challenging so keep at it if it’s not coming naturally. Trust me, you will eventually get it and because you already know the idea way to hold, and strum your ukulele, you’ll get it a lot sooner than you think!
Keep practicing. Tomorrow will be our last day of the course and we’ll add another chord to our ‘C’ and work on switching between them.
See you then!
-Ryan
