Hello all of you, today we will be looking at playing chords by using Down and Up Strums. For most beginners the Down strum is easy, it is like gravity: Your strumming hand will naturally fall down across the strings. The Up-Strum, on the other hand, is usually the one that needs a bit of work. For this lesson we will be looking at the triplet which is played by using Down and Up strums.

Here are the fingerings for the Chords for the following Chordprogression:

           C       F     G  

   E   —0—–1—-3—–

   B  —-1—–1—-0—–

   G  —-0—–2—-0—–

   D  —-2—–3—-0—–

   A  —-3———–2—–

   E  —————–3—-

   
    Play the chords in following order:  C    F     C     G    :]

   

Strum EACH Chord as follows: Down  Down  DownUpDown  Down

Counting for each bar is:            1           2          3   e   h          4

N.B: Observe that you play 3 strums on Beat 3. This kind of rhythm is called a Triplet: You create three sounds [Strums in this case] over One Beat. 

 You can play Beat Three on its own by just playing the Triplet-feel. For more experienced players I would suggest playing the triplet-feel by Mutting the strings, this will create a percussive effect in the middle of the harmonic sequence.

Feel free to use different Chord Fingerings, as many as you like really, and experiment.

   Playing Ideas:

# Record the sequence and use it for improvising, use the C major Scale and the Am Pentatonic to create your own melodic ideas.

# Transpose the sequence to different keys like D major, F major and A major.

# Play the sequence by only using PowerChords [ A chord which only has a Root Note and a 5th ] play sequence with a different feel.

Enjoy,
Eddie