Add DYNAMICS And FEELING To An Easy Strumming Pattern
OUR GOAL: To learn how to add walk-ups and walk-downs to our chords and strumming which will give us access to a must-know country and folk idioms – and this is no small feat!
Walking Bassline Challenge Episode 2 (of 8)
In order to accomplish that we will have to break it down into the tiniest bits, isolating each technique or skill, and gradually put it back together.
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Last time we left you with some simple chords and a strumming pattern. Today, it’s not going to be too much more, like I mentioned at the start of this whole thing it’s all about isolating those small things and build up to our goal, one little bit at a time.
In this lesson, we’re going to practice the root strum. This is going to add a lot of dynamics to our playing. You know, it goes beyond just downstrokes and upstrokes… now, we’re doing a stroke that aims for the bass notes of our chord.
This is a very important concept that will help you with more than just these lessons. This is one of those little things that makes you sound so much more musical, once you learn how to integrate it into your guitar playing.
We’re gonna go over the roots of our chord shapes, the technique involved and most importantly, how to balance our strumming feel versus our accuracy in picking those root notes.
I’ll explain it a little bit further: When we’re strumming, we want to have nice big sweeping motions in order to get the best strumming tone. When we’re picking the root note, we need to be accurate. For a lot of people that means a smaller, controlled motion.
But if our motions get smaller our strumming doesn’t sound as good! So we have to figure out how to balance that – how to be accurate without tightening up and that’s what today’s lesson is all about.
I’ve updated the worksheet on Patreon to include today’s lesson. If you need any extra help, you can always ask.
You’ll find all 8 episodes of the Walking Bassline Challenge on this page, here!
