i'm really confused in strumming

Do you use a metronome tripleA23? If not, you could think of your strumming as a way to keep time. For example, without changing the motion when you strum but change when you actually touch the strings. You'll see strumming described with the letters U and D so if you strum you can alternate when the pick engages the strings to develope rhythms. So if you are using a steady D U movement of your strumming hand but only let the pick touch on the D strokes, you'll get a certain rhythm and timing going. If you alternate that with letting every other U stroke engage the strings, you'll get another kind of rhythm and timing and yet your strumming hand is continuously making the same movement D to U. Hopefully someone else will jump in with another explanation.

GuitarZen

Join the crowd. As you can tell I'm new to this git thing; about 9/10 months.  I have an acoustic.  When I started, I liked the thumb strum (pun intended).  It gave me a nice mellow sound and not harsh like with a pick.  But I just couldn't get the hang of the up-stroke.  So I reverted to various "softness" picks.  that helped.  My coach made some for me out of plastic container lids.  Recently, I started to try without the pick, again.  With a suggestion from this site (69Jaguar).  I'm making BIG stides with finger strumming.  Jag told me to LIGHTEN UP and not try to stretch the strings with my thumb.  IT WORKS.

As far as picking up a strum pattern for a song, that's another story.  My coach is still working with me to LISTEN to the music and try to pick out the chord changes.  My wife thinks I'm NUTS when we're in the car and I'm strumming on the side of my leg while I'm driving.  But it does help to strum along with a song you want to learn.  Sometimes I will mute the strings while I'm listening to the song and start strumming.  Then slowly start to pick up the chord changes and try to play along.  Then in my notebook, I'll pencil in the pattern that I picked up.

Good Luck, I'm sure some of the other great people on here can help you more than what I'm doing.

Dean

dean if your feeling folk music at all they do a lot with the hands picking individual
strings its super fun and simple and but it gets more advanced too

this site helped me a bunch just to understand with handy arrows and stuff

http://www.scenicnewengland.net/guitar/ … umming.htm

Hey CIVIC..........this is a great site.  I went to the "finger picking" portion and am going to give it a try.  I much prefer using my fingers than strumming with a pick.  I never play wth anyone else, strictly solo for ME.  So fingetr picking might let me get a more fuller sound for the songs I'm playing.  THANKS..........Dean