If you can't count "them", how can you keep "it"? Whether you're playing solo, or in a group, a strong sense of timing and rhythm is of the utmost importance.
COUNTING BEATS Start with the C chord. Stick out the index finger on your strumming hand like a record player stylus. Strum across the strings down toward the ground and count "ONE". Do this three more times counting "TWO", "THREE" AND "FOUR". Strumming down toward the ground is called a downstroke and always falls on a number. A number is a beat. Strumming down four times = strumming four beats = one full measure (phrase) of 4/4 time. We call the numbers "Beat One", "Beat Two", "Beat Three" and "Beat Four". Can you think of any songs that consist of nothing but downstrokes on beats 1, 2, 3, and 4? Play the Am chord, strum down on each beat, then listen to "Sandman" by America. Now play the G chord in the same manner and listen to the intro to "Bennie and the Jets" by Elton John.
ACCENTING BEATS The first step toward emulating certain songs or the feel of different music genres like country, reggae, etc, is understanding accents. Starting with those same 4 downstrokes, strum softly on beats 1 and 3, and strum beats 2 and 4 with a heavier hand. You should aim for hitting only the bottom one or two strings (G and C strings) on beats 1 and 3 by strumming slightly away from the ukulele, thereby avoiding the other strings.
Accenting beats 2 and 4 (one TWO three FOUR) emulates a drummer hitting a snare drum and at a medium to fast tempo sounds a lot like a Country or Bluegrass song. Use this pattern for songs like "This Land Is Your Land", "You Are My Sunshine", and "Keep On The Sunny Side". It also works great for "When The Saints Go Marching In".
Obviously, to strum on beats 1, 2, 3, and 4, your finger has to come up in between each number. We call these in-between beats "AND". Strum the C chord down toward the ground and count "ONE". Now move your finger across the strings toward the ceiling and say "AND". On the next downward strum count "TWO", followed by an "AND" on the way back up. Repeat with "THREE AND FOUR AND" for one full measure (phrase) of 4/4 time, this time with both upstrokes and downstrokes. Be sure to give equal volume to both up and downstrokes.
Accenting different beats produces familiar grooves to songs. Examples:
one and TWO and three and FOUR and ("Banana Pancakes" by Jack Johnson)
ONE and two AND three and FOUR and one and TWO and THREE and four and ("Faith" by George Michael)
GHOST STROKES A term originally used by drummers, I find Ghost Strokes to be a perfect way to describe what one needs to do to emulate any strum while maintaining a strong sense of rhythm and pulse regardless of whether the tempo is slow or fast. A ghost stroke can fall on either a downbeat or an upbeat and a variation/combination of both will produce very familiar sounding grooves.
Start with a repeating robotic pattern of strumming all beats: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &. Now replace all the "&"'s with a ghost stroke, meaning you strum OVER the strings, not actually hitting them but moving your hand as if you were. If you had a volume control and it was turned off, people watching your strumming hand would not know that you were not producing a sound on those upstrokes but if you turned the volume back up, listeners would hear just 1, 2, 3, 4, like the previous example of "Bennie and the Jets" and "Sandman".
Use ghost strokes to mimic the familiar sounds of these well- known tunes (x = ghost stroke) Blowin' In The Wind (Bob Dylan) 1 x 2 x 3 & 4 & Leather and Lace (Stevie Nicks) 1 x 2 x x & 4 & Best Of My Love (Eagles) 1 & 2 & x & x x Angel Mine (Cowboy Junkies) 1 x 2 & x & 4 &
As with accents, the fun part comes from creating your own patterns as you practice omitting different beats at random and replacing them with ghost strokes. Sit down with your ukulele and play whatever comes to mind - you're bound to stumble across a strumming pattern for that favorite song of yours that you'd been trying to figure out for the longest time. Combining different strum patterns with different chord progressions such as C-G7-C, G-C- D7-G, F-Dm-Gm-C7-F, etc. will help keep things interesting and make it even easier to "discover" songs.
Now dust off those old favorites, revisit them with an open ear and HAVE FUN!
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