Last time, we delved into the all-important topic of developing solid pick-hand timing when strumming. To me, that’s where the groove is: the pick hand is the timekeeper, and I’ve spent a lot of time working on exercises designed to bolster my strumming competence. In this column, I’d like to share some more of these exercises.
One of the interesting things that I did to develop my strumming technique had nothing to do with my wrist motion or how to hold the pick. I actually had teachers in college tell me that my technique was terrible and say “you should hold your pick this way!”
I eventually realized that everyone’s bio-mechanics are different and unique, in terms of works best and most efficiently. So, I don’t swear by my technique; I swear by my ability to control my right-hand movement and the exercises I used to get there.
An unorthodox approach I took was to borrow something from my old marching band drum line exercises and adapt them to guitar. In hitting the snare drum, I’d practice the typical “stick control” exercises of “right-left-right-right” (RLRR) or “left-right-left-left” (LRLL) and I practiced “grid-ing” drills of shifting accents from one 16th note to another. I realized that this approach could enhance my right-hand technique.
Let’s pick up from the last lesson’s examples with steady 16th-note strumming on fret-hand-muted strings, utilizing the “steady motor” approach of down-up-down-up alternate strumming on every beat, as shown in Figure 1.
If you verbalize the four beats of 16th notes in each bar as “1-ee-an-da, 2-ee-an-da, 3-ee-an-da, 4-ee-an-da,” the pick strokes are down-up-down-up, etc., with “ee” and “da” being strummed with upstrokes.
When strumming this way, your have three options: hit a note or chord, play a “chuck” (muted-string strum) or play nothing — just let your hand swing over the strings.
Figure 2 illustrates a “grid-ing” exercise to strengthen pick-hand control for strumming, achieved through shifting the accents. We begin with one bar of accenting the four downbeats (1, 2, 3 and 4), strumming them a little harder than normal. This is followed by a bar of accents on “ee,” then a bar of accents on “an” and ending with a bar accenting “da.”
Now let’s switch the accents to two beats each, as shown in Figure 3. On beats 1 and 2, I accent the downbeats, and on beats 3 and 4, I accent “ee.” In bar 2, I accent “an” in the first two beats, then “da” in the last two.
In Figure 4, I shift the accent forward on each beat, which is a little more challenging to do. Proceed slowly at first while tapping your foot squarely on each beat, then gradually increase the tempo.
The next step is to work in some chords. In Figure 5, I press down on an E9 voicing at the same accent points specified in the prior examples, moving from one 16th-note accent to the next on each successive beat.
In Figure 6, I apply this approach to a more traditional funk rhythm part with changing chords. As you’ll discover, rhythm parts like these are much easier to play once you learn to control how your two hands work together in laying down a solid rhythm part.
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
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