The Friendly 12bar Blues Guitar Forum

Not sure if this suject has been posted before. Sorry if it has, but..............

Can someone please tell me, how do you work out the strumming pattern of a song?, bearing in mind I already know the song, but dont know how to play alone with it. Also have the chords for the song, so I guess i'm halfway there so to speak.

Thanks in Advance
Jon

I've been thinking on this one... It is a tough one for me to answer, because I don't really strum. I play with my fingers, so I will usually hit a bass note with my thumb and then pluck or arpeggiate the rest of the chord. (full chord or partial, depending on how I want it to sound) Sometimes I will use actual fingerstyle patterns or strum occasionally. If I am covering a song that requires strumming (for instance during the vocal, as in SRV's Mary Had a Little Lamb) I will usually just copy the pattern of the artist I am covering.
This probably doesn't help much but my best advice is to listen a lot and experiment with what you hear.
Good luck.

I'm of no help either because I always tend to pick some patterns. But when I do it, I don't even think about, it comes naturally. So - maybe - let your fingers do what they want...