Guitar Strumming

Chords in the Key of C Major

Basic Guitar Strumming:

Guitar Strumming is often thought of as one of the easiest techniques to master and many guitarists neglect the needed techniques to become a great rhythm guitar player. Don’t get caught into this web of thinking as having a good command on playing chords is one of the most important skills you can obtain on the acoustic guitar, and this is especially true is you accompany someone playing lead guitar, a singer or your own singing.

Once you have learned some of the chord shapes or forms, you have only conquered half of the battle. Fully as important as fingered the chords properly with the left hand is a ‘rock-solid’ right hand guitar strumming pattern. This is a must as the rhythm guitar playing often sets the ‘beat’ in a song especially if there is not a drummer in the band. Therefore, any pauses, mis-played chords or slightly “off the beat” chords simply will not do.

In the rhythm or chord lessons, we will start out with some beginning strumming and work our way up to some intermediate level materials, while doing so, we will apply these techniques to some “real world” songs, to give you a real good feel for actual application.

Before we start with some of the actual songs, we will take a look at some of the more common strumming chords you will encounter in these lessons. Also, to make your strumming much easier, let’s observe some basic tips and rules:

Guitar Strumming – How To Play Fretted Notes Clearly:

While you play chords, one of the most basic of rules to to be sure that all the notes in the chords ring out very clearly. If you find that one of the notes of a chord sound dead, muffled or muted, it is likely that you are doing one of the following:

1. A finger from one of the other fretted notes is touching the string that is muffled.
2. You are not pressing the string down hard enough.
3. In order to have a fretted note sound the clearest, make sure you follow these instructions:
4. Place a fretted finger just behind the fret that above the note. In other words if you are playing a note on the first fret of a string, place your finger just behind the second fret – it plays the easiest and the clearest there. About 1/4″ behind the 2nd fret is about the right distance.

Chord Diagrams or Chord Grids have symbols you should understand:

1. An “X” means you shall not play that note.
2. The circles with numbers are the finger number that you should use to fret the note. Some diagrams simply show a black dot as well, with the finger used to fret the note above and off to the side of the dot.
3. If you see anywhere from 2 to 6 dots connects with an “arc” this means this is a bar chord and you should stretch your finger (usually the first) finger over all the notes covered by the arc.
4. Sometimes the finger numbers of the fretted note are shown below the chord diagram as well.

Guitar Strumming – Practice Indeed Does Make Perfect:

Keep up your spirits. If at first you don’t succeed, you will indeed have to keep trying. This does take practice and eventually you will play all of your chords like a pro. Your fingers will get very sore as well. Remember you need to build up calluses on all 4 of your fretting fingers before the soreness will go away. This can take anywhere from several weeks to a couple of months.

Keep Your Fretting Fingernails At Proper Length:

Fingernails can be a real hindrance – at least on your fretting hand they’re not. Keep the nails on your fretting hand quite short to allow you to play multi-finger chords much easier. How much nail? I like to keep only about 1/32″ or .5mm and keep them filed at that length. Longer and you will impede your ability to clearly press down on the strings, less and you risk ripping the nail from the flesh of your finger and you won’t be able to play at all until it heals.

The next lesson on Chord Strumming will document the basic chord forms you should become familiar with.