Morning has broken strumming

A bit of memory, plus a quick listen and a quick look through the sheet music, shows that the song is in 3 / 4 timing and that every chord change lasts either three beats (most of them) or six beats (last chord of first three lines). The only exception is the D7sus, which is part of the same measure of D7 so either go with two beats of D7sus and change to D7 on the last beat or use three full beats of D7. Most folks won't notice the difference.

A single simple 3 / 4 pattern should work out for you without breaking a sweat. Either:
BEAT 1 + 2 + 3 +
STRUM D D U D

or:
BEAT 1 + 2 + 3 +
STRUM D D U D U

should fit your needs. Hope this helps.

And it's not that strumming pattern requests are annoying as much as they show how much people are not relying on their ears or not taking the time to learning basics about rhythm. This is something that most teachers manage to get through to their students within the first six months of lessons. It's nowhere near as hard as people think and a lot of would-be guitarists are letting their belief that they have no rhythm dictate that they subsequently don't. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will, but it would take very little effort (although it would still have to be a effort) to change.

Peace

Adding a little bit to what David was saying, it took me a little while to be able to get strum patterns down. I had to feel the song, if that makes any sense. If I can't feel it, I can't play it. Maybe feel is the wrong word.

I'll give you an example I went through from a green-horn perspective. Some others do it too, but I bet it's not taught by anyone as being a sane or sound method. It's just something that works for me.

Just yesterday I took a song out of my can't-do-yet-folder. Not really a guitar song per se, but that doesn't mean it could not be done as such. Very obscure song from Supertramp called "A Soap Box Opera" from the "Crisis! What Crisis?" album. I got the chord sheet out and strummed once for each chord change while singing outloud to myself. As I progressed, I started adding more and more strums. By the time I got to the 2nd chorus, I pretty much had the feeling for the song and played it well until the bridge messed me up with some chords I couldn't finger in a timely fashion. At some point in time, it'll come to you. I have on many occasions looked at strumming patterns and not done well. I turned to this method, got the feeling and often turned out I was following the suggested strum pattern after all.

So like David, who is infinately more qualified to advise than I, said, it is not annoying. After the pressure is off from this weekend's toils, maybe dedicate some time to learning and developing a system that works for you. It's not hard once you get it figured out, but it does seem like a daunting task when you look at it from the not having done it perspective.

Incidently, I am in the same boat as you are, except replace strumming with lead/solo type stuff. Wes Inman has coached me quite a bit and I'm sure it will come. When it's done, I'll be saying "Oh, that's easy!".

Best of luck this weekend.

Thank you so much!!
Both posts have been incredibly helpful. That is great David, I pretty much have it down now. I think it was the 3/4 timing that had me confused- I need to push myself to play a lot more songs that aren't 4/4.
Re: strumming patterns- I do find, ususally, that with persistence I can find something that works for me just by feel. I found it very frustrating when starting out when people told me to just feel the strumming. I just wanted to be told "DDUDU for the verse, DDU for the chorus". And that does get you so far. But I agree wholheartedly with what rparker said, it is so worth figuring them out for yourself. I find that, for me, a few listens and then beginning to slowly strum along brings a pattern that is usuable. And once you've done it a few times, it really isn't as hard as you thought!

Thanks once more, such great help!

Adding a little bit to what David was saying, it took me a little while to be able to get strum patterns down. I had to feel the song, if that makes any sense. If I can't feel it, I can't play it. Maybe feel is the wrong word.

I'm starting to get this down also. The problem is, most of the time there are 2 or 3 guitars, drums, etc and it's difficult as a beginner to sus out the strumming pattern.

"If I can't feel it, I can't play it." - I couldn't say it any better.

I picked this up from someone, when you listen to the song, instead of playing the chords just mute strings and try to get the rythym and strum that way until you think you have it.

Bob Jessie

hello all

the "which is the strumming pattern" question, that all of us made in some point of our guitar journey, it is, in itself, quite useless if not totally wrong. I'll try to explain my tought: to be able to play a song quite faithful to the original it needs a few informations:

a) which is the time signature of the song (3/4, 4,4, 6/8...)?
b) which is the main rhyhtm of the song (is it based on quavers or semiquavers)?
c) is the song played straight or with a triplets feel?
d) when do the chords change (on the beat or upbeat?)

To tell that a suggested strumming pattern is i.e. dddu does not mean anything and could not give you any real answer to the above questions. if we think about the beat a dddu pattern could mean:

D/D/Du in a 3/4 song

or always in 3/4

D/DDu/pause

in a 4/4 song

D/D/du/pause

or

D/pause/d/du

or

d/d/pause/du

or

pause/D/D/du

or

D/ddu/D/ddu (using sixteen notes)

and a lot and a lot of other different rhythms, each one of course sounds utterly different from the other. Also the direction of the strums tell you anything about the way the song are played (straight or with a triplets feel): a simple du/du pattern sounds totally different if played straight or with triplets feel!!!also in some kind of music like metal or reggae a lot ot times you play with downstrums only both the beat and the upbeat strums

so at the end of the day the best thing to day is, as david suggested, is to learn to recognize rhyhtms in the songs. Of course it is easier if you have a set of different rhthms to learn like the ones included in a tutorial cd. When you'll be able to recognize a lot of rhythms just by listening ,it would be easier to find out a pattern that fits to the song.
Until you play a pattern that has the same time signature, and it is based on the same beat subdivision of the original one and you change the chords correctly you can choose which pattern you prefer.

to explain more clearly: let's say that the original pattern is
D/Du/u/Du

you can play any similar pattern (like d/du/u/d or also D/d/du/du) and it will still fit ok to the song

cheers

Matteo