One thing I learnt from playing the guitar is that the moment you get frustrated, just stop. Do yourself a favour and take a break. It's hard to stop because once you got the fever it's hard to quit playing but taking breaks helps sooo much for your progress. I just started playing again after a 6 month break and I play so much better than before. This break really helped a lot
Thanks for the lesson Sean. Always amazes me that so many people act like you should only be teaching them what they do not already know. It is not your private lesson folks, which you are obviously too cheap to pay for. These lessons are free and for a general audience. Great job Sean.
Thank you Sean. After 50 years I had given up ever being able to strum in time. But tonight I finally got it right due to this video! Turns out my sense of timing was not the issue, it was bad strumming mechanics all along. Can't thank you enough.
This breaks the technique down really well. You always go the extra mile to explain extensions off of the same skill that can really advance a practice. Even applying the basics of where and when to use it. This is why you're the best guitar teacher on RU-vid. Sprinkle in intentional over confidence and hilarity and you've got the best thing to happen to the internet and guitar in a long time
I find this is a really good fundamental lesson. I'm at the part of my 'guitar journey' where I'm noticing how other instructors teach inefficient technique and sloppy notation with things like strumming so as to confuse the watcher in order to draw them into one of their programs or website. Great job, Sean!
Great lesson Sean. I've been strumming ALL of the strings for WAAAYYY too long. Great lesson concepts in a simple to use format. Excellent pace for this lesson as well. Not too rushed...very effective. Thanks
Really thankful for great teachers on RU-vid like you You ever teach any scales or theory. Just from learning so little I've seen my guitar playing get so much better. It's amazing what so little can do
Sean, I haven’t seen a ton of your videos *yet * but you have an enjoyable Steve Martin quality that makes me imagine you had an arrow through your head.
Great lesson. Thanks so much. Really enjoyed it and I feel my strumming has improved already but I will keep working on it. I have just discovered you on YT Sean and I love your straightforward, no waffle, clearly explained approach. Off to explore your channel now. A new sub here. Many thanks from England.😁😁
I'm so grateful I found your channel. I'm binge watching your videos and trying to add all that cool stuff to my playing. I feel your videos are what's going to take me to the next level. Thanks a lot Sean! Also, I love that you explain things at a fast pace. It's packed info, great for impatient people like me :)
I’m 72 years old and still learning. As a retired middle school teacher, I appreciate the way Sean relates to us, his students. Serious, but with a mix of humor, and always giving off a positive vibe.
Hey Sean, Third time around the bouy with this lesson: ... such a fundamental topic, and you teach it in a thoughtful, considered, and entertaining way. Many thanks .. 😊
Found your channel today. I've been watching some guitar lessons to keep myself sane during this awful quarantine. Fell in love with the way you explain things! Thank you so much. Big hugs from Brazil.
I have been watching strumming videos for a long time and I couldn't play the way it should be.. but today it sounded just fine.. only because of you.. :) I'm glad I found your channel !!!!
Agreed! Can’t believe how difficult it is to strum well, to keep the tone clean and controlled. My strumming is way too noisy. I learnt some bad mechanics, and now changing how I strum. It’s getting better. ( 2 years into learning guitar. Loving it, but suddenly realised that I need to give my strumming some urgent attention….)
Wow dude. You are awesome. I am a beginner and love to play acoustic guitar. But i can not control my fingers and plectrum. I loose my control over it and can even remember which string i am hitting. Make videos for beginners please
This is a really good lesson. My strumming is crap because I only work on it when no one else is home, which is rare. Even an unplugged Telecaster is too loud for my family. How do your students practice it without driving their families crazy?
Thanks Bud! I'm a multi-instrumentalist that just picked up guitar 2 yrs ago...progressing rapidly. I play Irish bodhran drum. The guitars strumming technique shares many similarities to the "tipper" hand of the drum. Holding the tipper, holding the pick..the downbeats, the upbeats...much like paradiddles, etc. So it transfered in a matter of minutes...not months! Now it's time to get muting, and muscle memory...I've got my major and minor chords down- and changing at 80-100 BPM. Thanks SO MUCH! Can you do a video on anchor fingers, which chords are generally seen in pairs (ie- C to G, D to E, etc). TY!! :)
Thank you for your videos, sir!😊 I may have said it in a different comment section. But, I am learning on my own how to play the guitar and sometimes the piano! Lol, I love writing songs, and even just the couple of videos I have seen, are helpful. 😊
This is a great lesson. I've played rhythm and bass in bands since I was 13. That was 1962. Over the years I never learned to count but u got better and better at muting, playing only parts of the full chord, etc. I couldn't have done a better lesson on this. But I love to have a rhythm playoff against you 😎.
Really love your videos and how they are pitched at the 'hey, I didn't learn guitar from classical classes" people. Although I'm already past this stage, I can see how useful this would have been when I was learning -- and how accssible you're making it (oh you're not using a pick? Sure! Oh, you use your thumb to strum? Okay!) Amazing.
I found this really interesting and it breaks it down t make us sound better you can also try strumming at different points on the strings, towards the bridge is a brighter sharper sound, and towards the neck is duller and blends in...
It took me years of playing to realize the importance of right hand positioning. I can tell if someone is any good or not by watching them without even hearing them. Good players never move their picking/strumming hand very far away from position. You will never play well if your hand is all over the place and losing track of where the strings are. I used to pull my hand completely away from the guitar during a pause when I was not picking or strumming, so I had to find the strings all over again for the next strum! That's why videoing is so important. To see these kind of things.
Great lesson, Sean. (Not that your other lessons aren't really well done, just that this delve into advanced beginner/intermediate level technique is exactly the level where my practice resides.) So, next related issue: I'm having a lot of difficulty executing tremolo picking when trying to do that passage with the slides on the three highest strings in the song Rumble. Any help very much appreciated! Thanks, Sean.
You and Andres should collab and do a in-depth strumming video. Would love to hear you two discuss it because of the pick vs. finger style differences.
Preach! When you learn to feel what your playing and you put in basic fundamental practice it just starts showing up and your like well hell lookie here!
