Originally Posted by: JeffS65

Originally Posted by: usa4cc

Hey everyone,

I've been wondering how to do strumming patterns for 16th notes.

It looks like you do 1 a & e, 2 a & e, 3 a & e, 4 a & e. And then all the ands are also downstrokes, rather than upstrokes.

So for example, the first beat here would be DUDU.

Here's my question. How do I implement that and have good timing?

And is the physical aspect of it just muscle memory?

I think part of the answer for you is to understand that there are inflections during a strum pattern. Better verbalized as 1-eee - and - a -two-eee - and - a - three-eee (and so on).

Not every note is going to be strummed with the same empasis. I know someone whose playing sounds like a military drum because the strumming is uniform to the point where it's a strum like a march and not a groove of a song.

Though it does not directly answer your questions, the thought you want to also consider in strum patterns, timing and whether 1/8th or 1/16th notes is that the groove of the song disctates how you strum.

While you mentioned that it is DUDU etc yes, that would be a general overall pattern but what are the emphasis notes in that pattern.

Go listen to the Steeldrivers-Heaven Sent (it's the bluesy bluegrass band Chris Stapleton was in before he was huge). That's the kind of tempo and pace and listen to the strum pattern under the banjo and madnolin scratching, you hear the acoustic galloping along and that gallop is because of those emphasis notes. It's that emhasis that makes you count out 1'2'3''4 and so on.

Not sure if that answers but when talking about strum patterns, the actual pattern may not always apply to all songs given tht not all songs have the same pace and groove. So it's a matter of hearing those cues that help you strum, time and groove to the song.

What do the ' and " mean? Does that mean 1 and 2 are accented and 3 is especially accented?