[Playn4God]

OK, i just listened to it again, the palm muting part is more complex than i thought (or at least it sounds like it, it could just sound different in person), i am just now starting to work on it, but anyways, how do u do the muted strumming part?

[OnFireForGod]

Playn4God....

(unless he does it differently than i do) To do the muting while you strum thing, just lay the hand you use to do chords over the strings and don't press down. It will just sound like a mute. I'll record some stuff later. The mute strum works really good if you can throw it in the right places!

Nate....

You can strum really good, i've only been playing since january of 2001...i can strum pretty good, it has come natuarlly so far. One thing i can't do is triplets and quads. Do you have any advice on those?

[Playn4God]

thanks man!! that helps a LOT!!!! yeah, i tried something like that, but i must have pressed down too hard.

[nate95366]

On Triplets:

The triplet is a simple way of writing a complex rhythmic idea. The idea is this: play 3 notes in the "time-space" that it takes for one of a certain note to pass. The most common triplet in music is the "3 quarter notes" played over the duration that one quarter note would normally get. Now, you can't actually play 3 quarter notes in this amount of time (that normally takes 3 beats, not one), so you need to somehow divide the one beat into even thirds and play on each one of them.....

There are other triplets where you play three "eighth notes" in one eighth note's space....and triplets of three "sixteenth notes" in one sixteenth note's space.....

The most common forms that are played on guitar are the triplet quarters and the triplet eighths.

When I play them, I'm counting in my head - or out loud, if I'm practicing. Counting out loud while you practice may be embarrassing, but it's a shorter road to improvement than just playing by itself. Anyway, I'm counting "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" and if there's a triplet on the 3rd beat, it sounds like "1 and 2 and tri - pull - it - 4 and." You can substitute any reasonable 3-syllable word. My piano teacher taught me to say "beaut - i - ful" way back when....I like "tri - pull - it" better myself.

If you want, try strumming a whole passage of triplets: "Tri -pull - it Tri - pull - it Tri -pull -it Tri - pull - it" and gradually drop certain triplets out and replace them with a normal strum pattern.
Normally a triplet is strummed "up - down - up..." because that leads most naturally back into normal patterns.

What I've seen called "quads" on this board a lot are actually just fast triplets. A true "quad" is strumming a true-to-life sixteenth note pattern, which is easy until things get fast. So if you want to do true quads, just practice switching from really normal strumming to really fast strumming while still tapping your toes or counting out loud to the same beat at the same pace. If you want to pull off those Shane Barnard-like transitions between measures where it sounds like he's strumming with something faster than a human hand, work on your triplets until you can play three notes in the space of one eighth note, and then (because this is what Shane really does) three notes in the space of one sixteenth note. Start with a really slow beat, and gradually progress faster. Start by strumming a triplet on each beat or half beat (if you're doing the eighth note triplets) or quarter beat (if you're doing the sixteenth note triplets) and gradually remove some of them until you're left with one or two right at the end of the measure.....and then presto! you're imitating Shane!

Hope this isn't too long and too confusing....

Nate

[OnFireForGod]

Great! Thanks for your help !

[Geetar4Gsus]

i have a question, is there any exact strumming patter to a song? Because when i play with my friends they tend to play a different strumming pattern than i do, mine works and i can sing to it better, do i need to learn a different pattern? I always figured it was like percussion in that i could add as many beats/strums as fit for me. Thanks guys!

[nate95366]

There's no "exact" strumming pattern for a song unless it's written into the paper music and you and your band comrades have agreed to follow the paper music to the letter.

Two guitars playing different strumming rhythms on the same song can be as refreshing as a cool breeze or as painful as Chineese water torture. It just depends on the ability of the two guitarists playing together. The trick is to compliment each other, which can't be done when you're both doing "your own thing," but rather has to be a concerted effort between the both of you. "Your own thing" might work for you to sing with, and "his own thing" might work for him, but there are a lot of different ways to fill 4 beats, and only some of them can be said to "sound good" together. If you want to sound like you know what you're doing, work it out - don't just show up and play your thing.

Nate

[thesteve]

Yeah...combining patterns doesn't always work. The first time I played with a partner (two guitar and nothing else) we both tried to play rhythm strummed and it sounded horrible because our patterns were almost the same, except I was like maybe a 1/16 of a second behind him...well a very short time anyway. Anywho, what ended up happening is that he strummed while I arpeggioed...it sounded good.

[Dice]

Heh, man...

All this talk describing how to do things and stuff I'm really humbled to see how God's worked with me on my strumming stuff. I just kinda picked up a guitar and started teaching myself 9 months ago, and it came real natural. Now with strumming I'd say I'm probably 2/3 as good as the demo posted there. And I've never really studied or tried to do specific things, it's just come kinda natural. Sometimes in worship I do stuff and I don't even realize, the Spirit groove just gets into me or something, heh.

Though I still struggle with bar chords & picking patterns, and even for some strange reason cant get some songs strumming to sound the way I'd like (main example: Mercy is faling) I look forward to growing as a guitar player in future years.