Local Artist Brook Hoover
Brook Hoover is a local rocker and founding member of Surf Zombies. He is a patient, caring, certified, experienced instructor with a passion for sharing music. Find him on Facebook and YouTube. You can purchase his awesome Guitar Chord book on eBay, a great compliment to this class.
Strumming Pattern using G, D, Em, C
If you happen to listen to music created in the last thirty years, you are bound to recognize the four-measure pattern of four chords and I'll demonstrate them in this video. The chords are G, D, Em, and C. You would be playing in the key of G major using those four chords. If you need to play in a different key but have only mastered these four chord formations, put a capo on the neck of your guitar. If the capo is applied to the first fret, you are now in the key of G# Major. Applying the capo to the second fret gives us A Major, 3rd fret is A# Major, 4th fret is B Major, 5th fret is C Major, and so forth.
Before you try the strumming pattern, make sure you get familiar with these four chords. Give each chord a strum and then let the strum ring out for a count of four like this: Let's start with the G chord. "*G-Strum* 2, 3, 4". This would be considered playing a whole note per chord. Try this with each chord.
Next try half notes which would give us two beats per chord. That would sound like this: "*G-Strum*, 2 *G-Strum*, 4". For a step harder, try the G chord, followed by the D chord. "*G-Strum*, 2 *D-Strum*, 4". Change up your chords to practice transitioning from each chord.
After that let's do four strums per chord which would be quarter notes. That would sound like this: "*strum, strum, strum, strum*" or "1, 2, 3, 4". Are you able to switch chords on each strum? See if you can!
Next let's play down up, down up, down up, down up, which would be eighth notes. That would sound like this: "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and." If you can do these smoothly we can move on to the strumming pattern recommended by the video and notation.
Make sure you check out the PDF to follow along with the strumming pattern in this video!
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