2 Keys To Improving Your Guitar Strumming Technique And Over All Acoustic Guitar Strum Sound

Do you find that no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get your acoustic guitar strumming to sound right. When you play along with recordings, or jam with friends and other musicians, your guitar strumming technique just doesn’t sound right to you.

The problem is that most people think great strumming technique starts and ends with learning lots of strumming patterns.

The thing is, this is only part of the overall picture when it comes to strumming. Here are 2 key things you need to do to master your strumming technique on the acoustic guitar:

1. Optimum Amount Of Tension

It is very important that you are relaxed when working on your strumming technique. All tension issues can really be solved by one thing, and that is awareness. If you are aware of excess tension, such as in your guitar strumming, then it will almost immediately disappear. If you stay consistent in being aware of tension issues, that is relaxing every time you feel excess tension come into your playing, then it will permanently disappear.

Here are some areas to be aware of to ensure you are only using the tension necessary to execute great strumming on your acoustic guitar:

• Relaxed Shoulders:  A lot of tension issues start in the shoulders, so make sure these are nice and relaxed when strumming your guitar. Make sure they are not raised at all, just let them sit naturally.

• Relaxed Wrist:  Your wrist should be moving separate to your elbow, not with it. In other words, don’t move your arm from the elbow alone. This will only result in an awkward and rigid guitar strumming sound. Imagine flicking water from your hands to dry them. Your wrist should be making a similar motion when strumming the acoustic guitar.

• Gripping your Pick:  Keep a light grip with the pick between your index finger and thumb. If this is too tight, your guitar strumming will again sound awkward and rigid. If you feel your strumming arm tensing up at all, then this is a sign that you are holding your pick too tightly.

2. Continual Strumming Arm Movement

Rather than trying to memorize a bunch of strumming patterns only, when working on your technique, it is also vital to focus on the continual movement of your guitar strumming arm as well. 

Most guitar strumming patterns can be broken down into two main categories. I call these two to a beat and four to a beat patterns. This simply means that you are either going to make two strumming motions to a beat (down, up) or four strumming motions to a beat (down, up, down, up). 

This will happen CONTINUOUSLY regardless of whether you actually strum the strings or not. Most times it will be a combination of strumming the strings and missing the strings and this is what will form your guitar strumming patterns.

Lets take the two to a beat approach as an example.

Start by simply strumming the guitar down and then up for each beat of the bar. Count 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + etc as you do this and be sure to hit the strings with each strumming motion. Look at the diagram below for help. You can hold a chord while doing this, or you can mute the strings to get a percussive effect like I have. It doesn’t matter, the strumming motions are what count here.

Doing this, gives you a good awareness of where the on and off beats are, and will form a great foundation for your acoustic guitar strumming technique.

Next we want to take out some of the strumming hits on the strings, but NOT the actual arm movement. Remember, to have great strumming technique on the guitar, the movement of the strumming arm MUST be continuous.

In the diagram above I have taken out the + of 1, the 3, and the + of 4.This now creates a pattern in my strumming on the guitar. Remember that you are still making all the motions, but not connecting with the strings on the beats that are greyed out.

From here you should come up with lots of different guitar strumming combinations of your own by missing out various beats in the bar. Very shortly you will have the ability to make it up as you go along, without having to really think about patterns, and that is when you will have truly mastered the technique of guitar strumming.

Keeping your arm continuously moving in sync with the beat will ensure that your strumming on the acoustic guitar will always be in time and you won’t be restricted to a static pattern for an entire song. As a result your strumming technique will sound more natural.

Check out these fun and effective fingerpicking guitar lessons for beginners