Strumming always seems to be an issue when you’re starting out playing guitar. I’ve done a couple different lessons on strumming before, but I though this time I would back things up to just about as basic as we can get.
If you’re struggling with your strumming, I recommend practicing with a metronome.
For learning basic chords and strumming patterns, Jamorama is a pretty good place to start. Click here for my review of Jamorama.
Don’t feel bad about keeping it basic -- make sure you can master a strum before making it more complicated. The worst thing you can do is always be attempting to do more than you’re able, and thus never really playing in time. Rhythm needs to be built slowly, but accurately and precisely.
As you’ll see, I initially started this strumming lesson using G C and D chords. Which of course works fine, and is highly relevant for teaching the strum pattern, however then I realized just how much this strumming pattern is used in the blues, so the last part of the lesson is really just a demonstration of how you can use 7th chords and make that exact same strumming pattern sound great in the blues.
7th chords are probably among the most common chords you’ll find in the blues, so if you ever want to make a song a little more bluesy, try swapping the major chords for their 7th counterparts. For instance, E goes to E7.
So without further ado, let’s get into the lesson!
Here’s a guitar lesson for beginners on guitar strumming.
One of the most common things that I’ve heard from you fine folk is you’re having difficulties getting strumming down properly. In this lesson on guitar strumming, we’ll cover a very simple rhythm that you can use to practice your strumming, however I also talk about things like how to hold your pick, and a very important one… which strings to play.
As always, leave a comment below the video and tell me what you think about it.
Here’s a guitar lesson on how to play Last Dance With Mary Jane chords by Tom Petty. I didn’t address the riffs in this song, as this video is targeted towards beginners. Instead, we focus mostly on the strumming aspect, which sounds pretty cool on its own anyways.
The chords are quite simple -- all open chords -- Am, G, D and back to Am. The chorus (didn’t get into that in the video) is Em7, A, Em7, A, G.
Leave a comment down below and let me know if you like the song and I’ll do another video for the riffs.
(UPDATE: I’ve now done a lesson for these riffs for Last Dance With Mary Jane as well. Click here for Last Dance With Mary Jane riffs.)
