Song Help Request Blanco White - The Lily (strumming pattern)

Hi,

so I was trying to play the Song "The Lily" by Blanco White and got hung up on his strumming. I can't really get into his rhythm, even trying to use triplet strums it all seems very unintuitive.

I know it's hard to describe patterns, but if anyone has an idea, it would be very much appreciated.
Here is a live session with which I tried to see his hand movement.

The best way would probably just to use the YouTube slowdown function (gear icon >> Speed >> select 0.25, 0.5, or 0.75) and feel out the rhythm.

Sounds like you were on the right track though, basically just triplet strums. So if you had a 4 count with triplets (DUD) on each count (D = Down strum, U = Up strum)


Just get comfortable with doing that, keeping the spacing between all of the strums the same, starting off at a slow tempo and bringing it up to speed (his tempo is around 112bpm). Once you have that down, try taking the Up out of beat 1:


Make sure that you maintain the space for those missing Down strums, just don't play them. Finally, replace the Down on beat 2 (or both beats 2 and 4) with a chunk:


Once you can play that at full speed, it should sound pretty close to what he's doing. You can practice with one full pattern on each of the chords Dm (2210), F(2010), Am (2000), Dm (2210)

But again, the best way might just be to listen and try to match the rhythm. If you focus less on the direction of the strums, what your hand is doing, how many beats, and instead just feel the rhythm (even at a slower tempo), you'll probably get it much faster than trying to digest all of the information above. Hope that helps, good luck!

It might be just me, but I don't hear 4/4 time in this song. To make sense of the timing, I have to think three (or, perhaps six) beats to the bar.

John Colter.

Can number it either way:


or even number each strum 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 to make it 12/8 time, which the song most likely is. But there's very little difference between 4/4 time with triplets on each beat and 12/8 time. Just however the composer chooses to write it out.

AS a musical illiterate, Puremarkska, I would not dispute what you say, but I just can't count "one, two, three, four" while listening to this song.

Hey thanks for your help.
I think I figured out how to do it by starting with an up-strum and putting emphasis on those, if that makes any sense.