Guitar Strumming Basics

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Mike Lais on behalf of Expert Village. Today we are going to be talking about getting familiar with the guitar. OK, to strum the guitar first we're going to need is the pick. The proper way, or the most comfortable way, to grip this is just by taking it simply with your thumb on this side of it, right here just like so, and then taking your index finger and putting it on your first knuckle, just like that. So now you've got a firm grip on it and it's not too straining on the hand. Now, what we want to do is just strum the guitar. The most important thing as with everything in music is to be relaxed. You just want to have your guitar and you want to have your arm ready to go, right here, just right above the sound hole is where you're going to get your fullest sound. You're just going to strum it just like so. Just want to make sure that you're staying over the sound hole because if you go too close to the bridge you get a different sort of a tone and it kind of takes away from it. You want to keep it over the sound hole, keep it nice and relaxed and just kind of keep it flowing. Try on your own trying to strumming a few quarter notes. Try strumming different patterns and just keep it dynamics. Try strumming hard, try strumming soft. Don't even worry about your left hand right now just worry about getting your right hand comfortable at strumming the guitar, like so. And that's it, that's strumming your guitar."