A Home-Strumming Queen

Want to learn to strum guitar ? Cheer up, Sleepy Jean. Oh, what can it mean to a daydream believer and a…

Home-Strumming Queen

No, it’s not a lesson on The Monkees hit.

Just a bad pun on a good song.

All because, at the moment, I am putting the finishing touches together to…

The QuickStart Guide to Strumming (video guide).

Struggling With Strumming

Many guitarists struggle with strumming on a variety of levels.

For beginners, it can be hard to tell why their strumming sounds “off”.

Even with students in front of me in real life, it is not always obvious what is going wrong.

I have to do my Sherlock Holmes impression and look closely (no deerstalker hat though) and isolate what could be going wrong.

This includes a lot of subtle stuff such as the way the student grips the pick, the thickness of the pick, chord clarity, the way the pick/fingers hit the strings, which strings they are strumming, and plenty more.

All of these add up to either make strumming sounds great or possibly like nails on a chalkboard. (At least when I was learning it was like that!)

With all these little things that could go wrong, it is no wonder why some students find strumming a hair-raising experience.

If you struggle with strumming, think about the above and isolate each area.

Then get to work on fixing each of them.

The QuickStart Guide to Strumming

The QuickStart Guide to Strumming is a 16-minute video which features the same lessons I cover with real students…
All made to help you fix the fundamentals and learn to strum guitar properly.

It’s out Monday in my membership course, (specifically as part of the In Focus lessons) which is my flagship course, aimed at taking beginners to an intermediate level.

Some of the little things you will learn inside the video:

• How holding your pick too tightly can ruin your strumming sound (along with a quick fix on this)
• When I recommend you strum with your fingers rather than a pick
• A simple tip to help ensure your chords are clear and buzz-free (something crucial to fix or your strumming will never sound good no matter what you do)
• My all-time favourite pick
• Why the thickness of the pick is so important
• “The Pendulum” exercise to help give you a more natural strumming sound
• Why it can be helpful to think of the strings as a “block” when strumming
• The precise method for teaching upstrums which usually helps students improve them in minutes
• How to fix the bad habit of strumming the wrong strings – once and for all

This is just Part 1.

Part 2 is coming next month where we develop these ideas further and have more fun with them.

(Part 1 contains enough for most guitarists for one month though).

Here is the link to join the membership and get the lesson on Monday…

The Dan Thorpe Acoustic Academy

Good luck and happy strumming!

Dan Thorpe

Guitar Domination

P.S. This post was originally taken from Dan Thorpe’s private email list. To get blog posts like this sent to you which are full of great tips to make fingerpicking, strumming, and learning guitar more enjoyable (especially if you are over 40) join Dan’s list. It’s 100% free, HERE.