reggae strum patterns?

ukuleleplayah

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i have recently been playing the song "i'm yours" by jason mraz, does anyone have any suggestions for a reggae strum pattern to use to this tune?
 
Aldrine did a uke minutes about reggae strums a while back. It helped me a lot.

Oh, just noticed you are brand new to UU, welcome! On the main Ukulele Underground website there are tutorials called "uke minutes" which can be very helpful. Here you go, ask questions, people here are great!
http://ukuleleunderground.com/category/ukeminute/
 
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Okay... Count the beats in a song like this: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

To put this in perspective, during the chorus of "I'm Yours," the words fall mainly on beats 1 and 3. Like this:

Code:
    1  2  3  4    1  2  3  4   1  2  3  4   1  2  3  4   1...
Now I     won't   he -  si -   tate  no     more  no     more...

Now, strum your uke on beats "2" and the "4". That's your basic reggae strum. 2 and 4. Nothing to it! I don't care if you play them as "down" or "up", as long as you play them on beats 2 and 4.

Check out Bob Marley's "One Love" or "Satisfy My Soul" to hear good examples of a simple 2 - 4 reggae strum. You might consider "chunking" these strums, by quickly muting them with either your right or left hand.

If you want to get fancy, you can do two things. First, you can "touch" the fourth (or fourth and third) strings only on beat 1. This is like a strum, but you don't hit every string. Just the one or two strings closest to your chin.

So the result is like this: Touch - Strum - (rest) - Strum Touch - Strum - (rest) - Strum

Fancy thing number two is to play the "and" of the beats 2 and 4. What's an "and," you might ask? Well, that's the beat in-between the main beats. Like this:

Code:
    1 & 2 & 3 &  4 &    1 &  2 & 3 & 4 &   1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &   1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &   1...
Now I       won't       he       si        tate    no        more    no        more...

If you're playing the 2 and 4 with a downstrum, then the "and" will probably be a quick upstrum right after. Like this:

Code:
    T   D U      D U    T    D U     D U   T   D U     D U   T   D U     D U
    1 & 2 & 3 &  4 &    1 &  2 & 3 & 4 &   1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &   1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &   1...
Now I       won't       he       si        tate    no        more    no        more...

Iz uses a strum kinda like that on "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." If you don't play the touches, then you have a strum like on Bob Marley's "Stir It Up."

If you want, you can just play the "and" after beat 4. Beat 2 just gets a single downstroke. So insead of (rest) spank-a (rest) spank-a, it's (rest) spank (rest) spank-a. That give a song a nice rhythmic momentum, IMHO.

JJ
 
could you strum all 4 beats, but pinky mute the 1st and 3rd strums and only let the 2nd and 4th beats ring out?
 
Great summary JJ and some great fine tuning here!!!
 
I'm not a huge fan of reggae but some of it I realy like, and I liek the feel.right now a song with a reggae feel I am working on is Underneath it all by No Doubt. only I havign a lot of trouble getting the right feel when I play. I can play on the right bea and all that but I have troble with the muting to get it to sound just right.

in the example in this thread,I realy dont understand what is ment by 'touches' when it comes to tecnique, Ive never heard that term used before, can you clarify this??

And anyone have suggestions of some good video lessons/tutorals? It generaly helps me if I can watch and hear someoen demonstrate, i have lot of dsylexia etc and a hard time with tab numbers and charts.
 
I can't 'pinky mute' because the way I hold the uke, I've been playing to long to change the way I hold the uke, and my little finger just cannot reach up to mute the strings.
I've tried squeezing, or pressing the strings to try and mute them but I personally think it sounds awful. Maybe I need to practise it more but the problem there is I can't squeeze or press the strings when I play Am7 as it is all open!
 
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