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5.8 The One I Love, Strumming Sessions

Be prepared for some really hard work as you are introduced to your first strumming lesson, using the pattern for The One I Love. This is one of the hardest techniques to muster.

As you will see from the video, we have not made this an exact science, as we do not want to restrict or inhibit your freedom of expression….even at this early stage.

What is important is the clarity of the chords, the timing and the way you strum the strings.

You will need to ensure your posture is correct and that you are holding the pick correctly (if you are using one) and are relaxed. Your strumming arm will involve movement from both your wrist and shoulder which will, eventually become second nature, plus the ability to co-ordinate both arms and fingers with their
respective movements.

As you now know, strumming involves both what we call downstrokes (a downward movement of your arm across the strings) and upstrokes (which is the opposite). And I know we said strumming is not an exact science, here are 3 quick exercises designed to get your right arm working. Your fretting hand will be placed on the neck of the guitar so the notes are muted so you can concentrate on just one thing at a time i.e. your strumming arm.

Andy will show you how to build up to achieving this by employing some techniques to ensure you become comfortable in the shortest possible time, building up speed as we go. You will go through a brief down stroke exercise and finally start your 1st strum.

For The purposes of this exercise D represents a down stroke and U an upstroke.

D U D U – Playing Em….D……Em…….Em……Em for each D U D U sequence

This can then be repeated at different speeds using the full chord sequence. You will now start to get a sense you are really starting to learn your first complete song.

Andy uses this simple pattern to build up your ability to fully strum The One I Love with all the chord changes. Here is the full structure of the song with the chords, as well as the tab for the chords if you fancy following that as well. However please note that we have simply noted the number of beats on each
chord…..not the pattern. Because, as we said, it certainly isn’t an exact science and would also be far too confusing! Enjoyment is still the word. .

You are now some way to jamming along with our great backing track, either picking out the melody line or strumming the chords. Although there is one sneaky additional bit that is played right at the end of the song.

 

Strumming Patterns, Part 2

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