Acoustic exercises and strumming patterns
20 new exercises for acoustic guitar, from your first strum to Travis picking, and a page of 17 strumming patterns you can hear in your browser.
The Exercises page has a new division: Acoustic, for steel-string players who strum and fingerpick. It has 20 exercises, each a four-bar loop over the open chords most songs use, with light drums.
- Strumming patterns. Quarter-note downstrums, down-up eighths, the D-DU-UDU pattern, a 16th-note pop strum, the percussive chuck, offbeat ska upstrums, a swing strum, a 3/4 waltz and a 6/8 ballad strum.
- Chord changes. G, C and D every two beats, Am to the barre F, and the open-string trick for changing chords without a gap.
- Bass notes and strums. The boom-chick of country and folk, and a bass walk from G to C and back.
- Fingerpicking. A p-i-m-a pattern, an arpeggio in 3/4, Travis picking, and Travis picking with a melody on top.
- Hammer-ons in chords. Dsus2 and Dsus4 moves on D and A, and hammer-ons inside Am, C, G and E.
Each exercise's page shows its chord diagrams over the tab, with each strum drawn as an arrow. A strip under the tab shows the strum pattern with its counts, including the strokes where your hand keeps moving without touching the strings. Fingerpicking tabs mark which finger plays each note on both hands.
Strumming patterns you can hear
The new strumming patterns page draws 17 common patterns with their arrows and counts. Press Play on any of them to hear it looped over its chords with a click on the beat while the strip lights up each stroke as it plays. Each pattern links to the exercise that drills it in the player.
Checking strummed takes
When you record yourself on a strummed exercise, Demiurg checks when each strum lands but not which strings rang. A recording of a strum is hard to pick apart string by string, and we'd rather check less than mark a good strum wrong. Single notes, like bass notes and fingerpicking, are still checked for pitch too.