If your strumming feels stiff, uneven, or hard to keep in time, the fix usually starts with a few simple things.

Good strumming is less about memorizing dozens of patterns and more about keeping a relaxed motion, staying in time, and learning how to shape the rhythm of a song.

In this lesson, we’ll go through 7 ways to make your strumming feel more steady and musical.

If you are new to strumming, focus on Tips 1 and 2. Once you can keep a relaxed down-and-up motion in time, the remaining tips become optional ways to add variety and improve your practice. Let’s get started!

1. Find the strumming technique that works best for you

If you’re completely new to strumming, there are two main ways to strum a guitar.

Technique 1: Using a pick

By using a pick, you get a clean, bright, and consistent sound which can be easier for strumming chords. The way you come down on the strings is the same way you would come back up. 

Tip: Make sure to have a good grip on the pick so that it doesn’t fly out while you’re playing. At the same time try not to tighten your wrist but keep it relaxed so that you can strum more comfortably. Your wrist can rotate slightly but you shouldn’t need to overdo it.

Technique 2: Using your fingers

If you’re using your fingers to strum, using the nail will usually give you a brighter, clearer sound. Using more of the fleshy part of the finger gives you a softer sound. For an easy starting technique, try using the fingernail on the downstroke and the thumbnail on the upstroke. Like with the picking technique, you shouldn’t need to over rotate your wrist when strumming and should also try to keep your hand and arm relaxed. 

You can also check out this lesson on how to fingerpick on guitar which goes more in depth on this topic.

It’s helpful to figure out what strumming technique will work best for you. But it’s never too late to switch over or mix them up in different musical situations. If you’re not sure which method is better to use, check out this post on picking vs. using your fingers.

2. Master a basic pattern to strum up and down consistently

The first thing you want to be able to do is to strum up and down consistently. Think of 4 beats that keep repeating (these beats make up a fragment of time called a ‘measure’ that repeats in 4/4 time.) 4/4 is a common time signature used in music. There are other time signatures like 3/4 and 6/8 but we’ll stick to examples in 4/4 for now.

You can count these numbers out loud as you strum.

If you’re strumming down on each beat, it would look like this:

Then, if you were to divide each beat in half, you can count “1 and, 2 and, 3 and, 4 and”. Now you could strum up in between each beat like this:

I recommend strumming down on the numbered beats and up on the “ands” between them. This gives you a steady alternating motion that you can keep going even when you leave some strums out of the pattern.

Easy guitar strumming examples

Now that you have a basic idea of how strumming works, try these examples that sound more musical when you skip strumming on certain beats. Try looping each example once you get the pattern down. 

You can use any chord you like to play these examples. However, I recommend starting to practice strumming with chords that include all 6 strings like E minor, E Major, or G Major.

In these examples, let the chords ring out when a strum isn’t indicated.

Next, try changing chords without stopping your strumming hand.

Start with two chords you already know. Keep the down-and-up motion going while you switch chords every four beats. If the chord change is difficult, slow down rather than stopping the strumming motion.

This is where the exercise starts to feel more like playing a real song.

Once you get these down, you can try the same patterns with chords that start from the 5th string down like A minor, A Major, or C Major.

Check out the first chords you should learn on guitar if you don’t know the ones we covered here already.

To try more examples, I recommend going over these 12 easy strumming patterns on guitar.

If this information is already familiar or too easy, read the following tips to get your strumming to the next level.

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Go deeper with strumming

Tips 3 through 7 are optional extensions. You can return to them after the basic down-and-up motion feels steady. They show you how to add muting, practice with a metronome, think more creatively about rhythm, and use recording to review your playing.

3. Add muting to your strumming

A cool effect that adds interest to your strumming is to mute certain beats in a pattern. This is simply done by placing your strumming hand over the strings which can add a percussive effect to bring contrast in a pattern. 

In the following examples, the X represents a mute.

Experiment using these mutes to accent different parts of a strumming pattern. We cover more muting methods and examples in the ebook, Guitar Essentials.

4. Learn strumming patterns of your favorite songs

One of the best things you can do to take your strumming to the next level is to learn a variety of patterns from your favorite songs. After 5 – 10 strumming patterns from different songs, I think you’ll see a difference in the way you hear and approach strumming. You might need to look up the notation at first but ideally, you will want to learn the pattern by ear.

Read here for more on how to develop ‘ear training’.

The reason I recommend learning different strumming patterns is that they help you to develop a better sense of rhythm. The physical act of strumming isn’t too hard to learn but it’s having a good sense of musicality that makes your strumming sound better.

5. Use a metronome

A metronome is a tool that produces a steady clicking sound or beat at a tempo you choose. Playing with a metronome helps you determine if you’re staying in sync with the rhythm consistently. Take any strumming pattern you’ve learned and play it along with a metronome to see if you’re keeping good timing.

By the way, here’s a free metronome on our site.

When practicing with a metronome, always start slowly to make sure you have a pattern down in time before playing it faster. Then you can gradually increase the speed of the metronome to practice the same pattern in faster tempos.

Once the pattern feels steady, increase the tempo by 5–10 bpm to challenge yourself. The point is not to just be able to play things fast but also to develop a good sense of groove/feel to your strumming. 

Dread the idea of practicing with a metronome? Check out 6 benefits of recording to practice music.

This brings us to our next point…

6. Think like a drummer

You might be thinking ‘I thought I came here to learn guitar…’ but my point here is that if you learn to follow the strong beats and accents in a song, you’ll be able to strum something that fits more naturally with other instruments.

After having learned the main strumming pattern of a song, don’t limit yourself to keeping the same thing for the entire song. Also, there are usually rhythmic variations on different sections of a song so you will want to change up your strumming to match those parts.

You want to try switching up a strumming pattern or mixing up patterns so that it doesn’t sound too repetitive. You’ll find that if you listen closely to a recording, you rarely have the same pattern throughout a song.

Again, this is where the muting we talked about earlier comes in handy to make your strumming sound more interesting.

7. Record yourself

Record 20 or 30 seconds of yourself strumming on your phone, then listen back without playing along. Pay attention to whether the tempo stays steady, whether some strums are much louder than others, and whether the groove changes when you switch chords.

It can be easy to be overly critical when hearing yourself play but understand that you’re on a journey to get better which takes time and effort. Enjoy the process and take it one step at a time.

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Wrapping up

To recap, the 7 ways to get better at strumming on guitar are:

1. Find the strumming technique that works best for you
2. Master a basic pattern to strum up and down consistently
3. Add muting to your strumming
4. Learn the strumming patterns of your favorite songs
5. Use a metronome
6. Think like a drummer
7. Record yourself
   

Whether you prefer finger picking or using a pick, these tips will help you develop and refine your strumming skills. To see improvement in your strumming, I recommend applying some of the tips that you haven’t explored yet. Keep at it and over time strumming will become more natural to you.

Already comfortable with basic strumming? As an optional extension, learn how to make your strumming sound more musical.

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