Strumming songs

niknak1988

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Hey guys i recently bought a ukulele as i wanted to learn to play music and ukulele seems to be a lot more original than anything else and i love the sound.

currently i am learning to play a few songs that i like but i keep having trouble with strumming. even if i know how the song sounds i dont know what strum to play in order to make the song sound right.

is there a few standard strums that would be useful or do i have to just try and play anything and see if it sounds better each time?
 
Try Down, Down, Up, Up, Down. That was the first strum that I learned.

Welcome to the UU!
 
Check out the video tutorial on chunking. Chunking can make the most basic strumming pattern sound more interesting.

Also, there's the old trick of doing a double-down with your ring finger and thumb, making a sort of "downdown up downdown up" pattern. That's pretty simple when you get the hang of it, and sounds fancier than it really is, esp. when you get going kinda fast.
 
There's a very cool DVD out that covers a huge range of strums from blues to samba to reggae (and much more), called "Essential Strums for the Ukulele", taught by Ralph Shaw.

If you are in Australia, let me know as we sell it in our store.
 
Dude. The best way to get your strumming up to par is by playing songs you like to hear, muting the strings, and just playing rock star like never before. Pretend you are playing rhythm strings and just jam. You should pick up the basics quick. As a note just keep that right wrist in constant motion. It takes a bit to get used to "ghost strokes" but it comes in time. Good luck, have fun, live aloha.
 
thanks for all the quick feedback guys! i have looked at all those tutorials and will take on board what you all have said!

unfortunately i live in england so cant buy the dvd from you gaby :( sorry. i'll keep my eye out for it though!

aloha :)
 
I have the previously mentioned strumming DVD, which is good, but I did find it to be a little hard for a beginner. When I try to play along, it's really fast, so I can't really keep up.

But the down, down, up, up, down works great for me! I've seen videos by members of this board using this strum that were truly awesome, so it's a good one to work on. I also do a pretend reggae strum by just doing- up, down, up, in a kind of reggae like beat. There's a version of Tears on My Pillow by Piilani Arias that I downloaded on ITunes that works really well for this, but I use it for all sorts of other things too.

I think what happens after a while is that people get a feel for strumming and rhythm and that sort of thing, so then they don't really have to plan in advance how they're going to strum. They just feel it. I think that's why all these great players are so clueless when we ask about it... they just don't think about it anymore once they get good. So there's hope for us too!
 
I think what happens after a while is that people get a feel for strumming and rhythm and that sort of thing, so then they don't really have to plan in advance how they're going to strum. They just feel it. I think that's why all these great players are so clueless when we ask about it... they just don't think about it anymore once they get good. So there's hope for us too!

That's what I need is some hope. :) Thanks for all the great advice. I was just wondering about how to work out a strum for a song.
 
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