STRUMMING and FLATPICKING

Strumming is an action that comes easily or not depending on the player, most guitarists strum with a plectrum (plec ) as it  gives a crisper clean sound with a defined “attack”.

There are cases where players will use their fingers and their thumbs also using a thumbpick .  With the strumming hand it is important to keep a steady feel and constant rhythm  to be able to alternate between upstrokes and downstrokes. Upstrokes have a brighter sharper sound because they hit the top strings first, whereas the downstroke  produces a slightly fuller sound as the bass strings are played first.

While you play you should be trying to emphasize ghost accents on the beats, you can also use your right hand palm to deaden or mute the strings, so just rest your hand on the middle of the saddle and this will appear to give space or breaks to the beat  when required but also helps to accent the tonal quality of a sustained note.

Practice at this point will make permanent  so why not get started  …with other musicians  or playing along with CD recordings or just with metronones  to perfect your skills.

It’s a style  in acoustic and country strumming  that Flatpicking is used to combine open chord strums while alternating  open chord strums and single strings and single bass notes.

To simplify this, it consists of alternating the bass notes of an open chord, which are as a rule the root note in five or six of the most used open chords.

First play the bass note then the chord followed by the alternate bass note which is the fifth and then the open chord again.

Counting a four four bar you will get a bass note on one and again on three with the chord on two and four, this demonstrates the use of the left hand fingers to form the rest of the open chord if played at an up tempo allowing for quick changes.

When you are happy to proceed  the next step is to bring in a simple bass line to connect the open chord in a progression and the development of movement independence in your right hand thumb including fingers, so you end up playing a rhythmic bass line with the bottom strings while you play a melody line with the top strings.