Virtual Star Guitar Lesson 10
How are those chords coming along? Is it getting easier to switch between them? Don’t worry. It will get easier and easier each day that you practice until one day soon it will just happen automatically. Let’s begin.
In the previous few chapters we learned the G Major chord, the C Major chord, and the D Major chord. We are going to continue our lessons using these same chords, but we are going to build on our strumming. So far we have learned the whole note, and the half note. I am now going to introduce a new type of note. Take a look at this picture.
This is called a quarter note. It looks pretty much like a half note, but the circle is colored in. If a whole note gets 4 beats and a half note gets 2 beats, how many beats do you think a quarter note gets? If you guessed one, you are correct. That means we will count quarter notes 1, 1, 1, 1.
Let’s give this a try using a G chord. Here is a refresher picture, but you already have this memorized, right?
Ready to try a quarter note example? Take a look at the following tab.
(Click to enlarge)
You can tell from the little G over each chord that you are going to play a G Major chord. Note also the downstroke symbol. Give it a try along with me.
Audio Example C10_1:
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Now, give it a try by yourself.
Audio Example C10_2:
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That wasn’t too bad was it? Was it hard to play that many downstrokes that fast? If not, you will probably find that it gets harder to play downstrokes the more we speed up the tempo. Luckily we have something to help us out, the upstroke.
An upstroke is the opposite of a downstroke. When you strum up (upstroke), you start from the high E string (thinnest) and strum upwards towards the low E string (fattest). Let’s give it a try using quarter notes. Here is the tab.
(Click to enlarge)
Note the upstroke symbol on the tab. The upstroke symbol is the character at the bottom of each chord that looks kind of like a “V”. Ready to try it along with me?
Audio Example C10_3:
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Now try it by yourself.
Audio Example C10_4:
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You may be saying to yourself that you cannot play upstrokes any faster than downstrokes so how is this going to help you play faster in the future? The answer is when playing faster you can alternate downstrokes and upstrokes. It is this alternating downstroke/upstroke technique that most guitar players use when playing guitar chords.
Take a look at this tab. In this example we will be alternating between downstroke and upstroke.
(Click to enlarge)
Give it a try along with me.
Audio Example C10_5:
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And now by yourself.
Audio Example C10_6:
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Did you find that it was easier to alternate between downstrokes and upstrokes? Practice this example over and over until it feels comfortable. We will be using this technique in the next lesson.
Continue on to Lesson 11…
View the Virtual Star Guitar lesson index…
Do you have any questions or comments on this lesson? If so send me an email and I will respond shortly. rbrewer@myguitaruniversity.com