First and Second Strumming Technique Applications

In the previous lessons, you were introduced to the very basic movement of strumming and that is the single downward stroke with the thumb at indicated numbers of a measure alone. On our second strumming lesson I introduced you the single alternating downward and upward strumming at every count of a measure as in "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" where at the first beat "1", you will do a downward stroke. On our first strumming technique I already given you the song "Amazing Grace" but now you can try this also at the following songs: I Need You sung by America; I Was Looking For Someone To Love by Leif Garret; Hey Jude by The Beatles; Father and Son by Cat Stevens; Reality by Richard Sanderson. All you have to do is just to adapt your beat and strum to the slowness or fastness of a song tempo.

Now for our second strumming technique you can try the songs like Teach Your Children by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Blowin In The Wind by Peter, Paul and Mary; I'll Never Find another You by The Seekers. Although these songs might be too old for you, I strongly suggest you first try these songs cause it brings the very basic strumming movements. You can search all of these songs around the internet and from these songs, you will now have an idea where in your array of personal favorite songs these two kinds of strumming fits. Just for a short review i will again post these two strumming note representations.
1. Single Downward Stroke                    
     1     2      3      4  - one measure (4/4 time signature)              

2. Single Alternating Downward and Upward Stroke   
      1   and    2   and    3   and    4    and - (4/4 time signature)

Also, under this type of strumming lies the march time music. This has also the same single downward and upward stroke but the only difference is the musical note presentation or the manner on how you will do on the guitar this accentuated strumming pattern. It goes like this:

In order to help you more in gaining the proper accent in this strumming pattern, I created the rhyme on the fourth row of the illustration and all you have to do is to adapt the movement of your strumming hand to the manner this rhyme is normally spoken. This is in a 2-bar 4/4 time signature measure in marching movement and I suggest you to execute this pattern in a continuous mode to speed up the development of your skills. Many songs including march time songs are fitted to this kind of strumming pattern.