How to Tighten Up your Strumming Video Lecture - Guitar Become a Pro (English)

there are many things in life that are
better when they're shorter just take a
look at Adam Sandler's IMDB page we can
also take the same logic and apply it to
the length of your strumming motion so I
want to talk a little bit about what you
can do to kind of tighten up the stroke
in your strumming hand right so what I
mean by that is everybody has kind of
like a natural arc when they're starting
out - how far the pick actually moves up
and down when you're strumming right so
we're just going to take a regular C
chord right and maybe when you're first
starting out you almost everybody uses a
little too much arm a little too much
elbow in their strumming right so it
sounds like this and all that motion
you're creating a lot of inefficiencies
with right so like when you go down and
you start here there's this much space
outside of the string set and when you
come back up it's way up here and what
this does at least a kind of like a
muddy sounding dynamic you have going on
right
so sometimes you can't even really
differentiate some of the chords you can
just hear kind of like uh a pick out a
string or your thumbs or whatever and
this is kind of like a jumbled mess at
first right kind of like cowboy campfire
players is kind of like an example a lot
of people use in this kind of playing
right so what you want to be able to do
is create some kind of process by which
you can break up the string set into
little pieces as you can hit it's called
dynamic playing now that emic playing is
kind of tricky at first because I think
a lot of people think of it as just the
force of your pick right so again if
you're just playing the same C chord you
can dynamically hit it a little bit
harder and then back off and go a little
softer and that's great but I think in
the context of a song when you're
changing chords LA and you're thinking
about your fretting hand a lot it can be
hard to also think about hitting
something harder and softer so the
reason you want to be able to tighten up
your stroke is because you can control
the dynamics just by aiming at a certain
thing right like if you hit all six
strings that's going to be a louder
dynamic than if you only hit three
strings and with the same force
it's just simple sciences because only
half the amount of strings are
resonating right so you want to be able
to make a system in which if you want to
hit just three strings of a chord
you can always aim for three and just
hit three if you want for a four-four
and just it for if you want to and be
able to do it right so this comes down
to your muscle memory and we're going to
talk about some effective ways you can
train your muscle memory now the one
thing that's very controversial
depending on who you talk to you in
working on muscle memory is the concept
of having a floating picking hand or
strumming hand or a fixed one with an
anchor right or a bridge or something
like that right so a lot of people tell
you that it's bad form to have some kind
of anchor and when I say anchor it's
either maybe you have like you're
outside fingers anchored to the body of
the guitar or maybe like your your palm
or the side of your hand fixed to the
bridge and what you're doing there is
you're giving yourself a fixed reference
point you can always come back to so
like for example like if we just take
like the the fingers right here right so
if I have this attached to the body of
the guitar basically all I have to do is
this much power gives me two strings
this much gives me three strings this
much gives me four strings and that
fixed point is something you can always
come back to you now is this good or bad
I really don't see it as a bad thing as
long as you're weary or you kind of
understand a certain few things about
how it works right what you don't ever
want to have is tension in your hand at
all right so sometimes like what bad
form would be on anchoring is if you
have it your fingers really stiff like
this and when you're playing you're
really kind of feeling the tension in
your hand right now
you can do it where you're touching the
body of the guitar but still be kind of
have like a free-flowing motion right
see if you're look at my fingers right
there they're not really stiffly against
the body
but they're kind of giving it a
reference point right another one would
be your wrists right now this is
actually something that I personally do
and I don't think it's ever really
caused me any kind of harm it works just
fine and a lot of the best players in
the world do some kind of anchoring type
thing like a Petrucci mount scene even
like super fast shredder guys do it
Bellamy does it a lot so I don't really
think it's a bad thing as long as it's
not creating undue tension in your hand
right so let's talk about the one where
you put your wrist on the bridge a
little bit right now this is something
that could also help you with palm
muting what I'm doing there is I'm just
kind of having the side of my hand hit
the bottom of the string see right so
I'm not letting the strings resume so
this is one type of dynamic control but
aside from that you can still have them
wring out completely by keeping your
hand anchored here right so what this is
doing for me if I'm playing this way is
I'm taking the same C chord right and I
may be just kind of memorizing the
stroke in my wrist the two strings will
blur so if you try something like this
if it's comfortable for you just try to
focus on hitting two strings and it's
not even about the strings it's more
about memorizing and this movement to
get your pick from here to here it's not
even really aiming so much it is just
feeling with those strings so do this
try to get two strings go for three
strings
and go for four strings now visually it
might not always be the same thing so
you want to use your ears to hear when
you're getting in more of the chord
right you can do the same thing if you
want to try bracing with your fingers
all right now the opposite of bracing
would be to have some kind of floating
technique going on where your hand is
just kind of free-floating so this is
going to offer you the most amount of
versatility as far as what you want to
be able to do because you're not
constricted in any way shape before mine
it's the exact same thing float in a way
where you can train the muscle memory of
how hard you have to hit this to get two
strings three strings four five six
right now one interesting thing about
floating is that especially when you're
when I found when I'm sitting and
playing my strumming arm kind of comes
into play like where I rest my arm on
the body of the guitar plays a big role
in the available room I'll have to move
my strumming hand right so if I'm right
here if I'm kind of I'm really angry my
hand now instead of my wrist or hand or
whatever my arm so if I have it right
here
then the maximum amount I can go is
right here so this is a good spot for me
because I'm comfortable there's no
tension to my arm everything is loose
and free to kind of do whatever but I
can't get too far away like literally
the most I can do while having my arm on
the guitar here is right here to go any
farther I would have to move my whole
arm down right so it's really just
finding a spot that's comfortable
whether it's floating whether it's
anchoring it doesn't matter as long as
you're comfortable with it that's what I
want you to work on right so one thing
that is really good at training yourself
to get this muscle memory down and to
kind of find out how hard you have to
hit two strings is by hitting chords
within the string set so what we're
going to do is we're going to take a
power chord we're going to root it on 5d
so your pointer finger is going to be
the fifth fret on the D string and then
either your ring finger or your pinky is
going to be the seventh fret on the g
string
right so
just like that right now I want you to
try to go up and down
trying to just hit the two inside
strings and I think this is a really
good way to practice exactly that
movement that gets you that two strings
right because a very similar movement is
going to get you two strings either G
and B a B and E etc right so at first it
may sound like this and if you move it
even farther
rice this is the sixth fret that's a
good place to do too because if you
accidentally hit the a or the B string
it'll just sound really bad right so you
want to do it in a way or maybe at first
is kind of like this and then you can
hear over time
getting it really clearly right so you
can do this with any two strings right
if you want to maybe start out with like
a power chord on the EMA string just
start out doing that and then go down a
string
and then down another string and then
out another string now this one if you
do a power chord string on the g string
you're actually gonna end up with a flat
5 all right so you want to compensate by
moving your pinky out one more so for
just the g string rooted power chord
we're having a three fret span between
issue so
so you can kind of like alter this
exercise anyway but I just want you to
be working on the dynamics but instead
of using force and power dynamics aim
for pieces of a chord and it can be any
chord it can just be like a regular open
G chord right and to kind of make this
sound more dynamic
you
so I would say that's kind of like a
fairly dynamic simple strumming pattern
where I'm just going down and up
an open court but I'm not using any
different force the force in my
strumming hand is staying exactly the
same it's just which strings I'm
choosing to hit so the pattern that
we're going to use here is in a waltz
and for me I think strumming in a waltz
is a good way to hear the stuff a little
better because the accents on a waltz
just for me personally tend to stick out
more so I'll just show you right so
we've got one two three one two three
one two three one two three one two
three one so every three strokes I'm
working my way through so maybe the
first stroke one two three I'm kind of
going through the string set as I'm
counting one two three right I'm hitting
just these little pieces of the G chord
I'm not changing the chord at all I'm
just kind of focusing tightening my
stroke within it one two three and then
the second set of three I'm going to go
from the top lower one two three one two
three one two
one two three one two three one two
three one two three
one two three one two go to see it
you
back to G
so for me it was always harder to kind
of focus on hitting things harder and
softer until I got a better feel for
strumming and rhythm playing in general
so I just think that it's a good idea to
just maybe aim for pieces of a chord and
they kind of work that into your playing
in a very smooth even tempo way
there's always down-up down-up down-up
down-up down-up down-up because then you
can still open up a little bit more
brain activity to concentrate on what's
going on with your fretting hand because
having to make the compromise of which
hand to watch or whatever is really kind
of like a challenge when you're starting
out and so often we kind of neglect what
your strumming hand is actually doing so
just kind of do it a couple things like
this whether you're anchored floating
bracing with your hands whatever however
you want to do it as long as it's
comfortable and there's not a overdo
amount of tension in any part of your
strumming arm hand or wrist then you're
going to be improving and before you
know you're going to be able to kind of
feel out all these things you're not
gonna have to think about any of these
and you're just going to play with great
feel and become a great rhythm guitar
player