Strumming the Guitar: Guitar Strumming for Intermediate & Upward with Audio & Video

 ISBN 978-1-912135-52-3

Written by Gareth Evans

Copyright © 2019 by Intuition Publications

www.guitar-book.com

International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher

Introduction

Welcome to Strumming the Guitar. A guide based solely on the subject of strumming the guitar for intermediate level and upward. This book is the second in a two part series and goes beyond the basics of strumming, branching out to subjects of power chords, strumming in 3/4 time, barre chords, swing feel, early chord changes, using a capo to change key, using a capo to avoid barre chords, muted strums and 16th note strumming in 6/8 time and 4/4 time. Each section concludes with a musical study piece using the skills learned and practised. Exercises and musical study pieces are demonstrated with audio. Occasionally video is used where it serves to make for a better explanation. The symbols for audio and video will appear as follows:

Speaker47H__80          Video48H__80

Required knowledge for this book is the need to understand how to read chord diagrams, know a few basic chords and have an idea of basic rhythmic notation, or have already been through Book 1. This book uses over 100 chords to facilitate what it teaches about strumming, contains 158 strumming patterns and has purpose made diagrams and professionally hand drawn illustrations.

Here’s a quick primer on the strumming diagrams used within the book. Below is an example of the kind of strumming pattern used. The numbers and + symbols on top represent how we would count the rhythm. The + when referred to verbally, should be said as the word "and so you would count one and two and three and four and" etc. The larger dark arrows indicate when to actually strum (down or up) while the smaller white arrows indicate the down and up movements in between, called ghost strums. Underneath the arrows are the time signature and rhythmical notation, which correspond to the strumming arrows. A complete list of all strumming patterns for this book can be found at the back.

Some parts of the book refer to and are linked to other parts, to return to your previous location just use the back button on your eReader.

The link to the Audio and Video files can be found at this link at the back of the book

Chapter 1 - Power Chords

Power Chords

Power chords are often used in Rock, Grunge and Metal styles of music such as by Nirvana, Greenday, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Metallica and many more. Power chords can be quite versatile as you only need to learn one shape, and once you do, it can be moved around the fret-board. Below, this universal shape is shown on no particular fret.

For the purpose of moving these shapes around, the note to pay attention to is the root note. This note is pointed out in both the above diagrams by their titles as well as the letter R beneath the string on which it is. Let’s say we play our power chord shape with its root note on the low E string’s 4th