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In many of Neil's videos he tells us to keep our strumming hand moving up and down constantly. I know I don't do this - I will stop my hand when the strum pattern allows.When I try to concentrate on keeping my hand moving I feel like I am trying to rub my stomach while patting my head. I have searched the site for suggestions or exercises to break that habit and to develop the habit that Neil tells us to use and have not found anything. Does anyone have any suggestions for exercises?

villageac:

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I was first learning, I would play a song on the computer or IPod and just use my strumming hand to try and keep time..... 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &...... or whatever the time signature was. I would not even worry about my fretting hand til I could get the rhythm down and feel pretty comfortable with it. I would then add in a chord at a time. It was difficult to get the release on the last upstroke down comfortably (even though it seems like it would be the easiest thing ever). The only real advice I can give with my limited knowledge, is to be PATIENT with yourself and enjoy the small milestones. If you get frustrated too quickly, you may not stick with it... B)

I don't think I am explaining myself well enough - I don't have a problem with finding the rhythm of a song, or keeping the rhythm. The problem is that Neil advises us to keep our strumming hand constantly moving up and down - so, in a measure with all 1/8 notes you are contacting the strings every time your hand goes down as well as when it comes back up. But in measures that skip some beats, Neil wants us to keep the strumming hand moving in time - and I find that my hand will stop. I stay in rhythm when I resume - but my hand was not moving up and down silently during that pause, as he recommends. I am hoping there is some basic, simple exercise that I can start to work on to try and get my strumming hand to do as Neil advises.

That's good advice MJ, I reckon that's the way to go and I can't stress enough how much this idea of keeping the hand going helps with the timing. Maybe just focusing on down strokes at first will help , then moving to up and down (of course you are coming up after playing a down any way, its just a matter of the focus).
Chris

Village,

What you might want to do (and what a lot of people on this site have done) is to post a video of yourself playing. The good folks in this forum will provide very gentle feedback on the specifics of what you need to do.

To be honest, I think Neil's advice applies mostly to people who are new to guitar and who have difficulty with their timing once they stop strumming. You don't see experienced guitarists playing air guitar during skipped beats. They mostly just stop their strumming motion, and their internal clocks allows them to resume on time.

dennisg wrote:

Village,

What you might want to do (and what a lot of people on this site have done) is to post a video of yourself playing. The good folks in this forum will provide very gentle feedback on the specifics of what you need to do.

To be honest, I think Neil's advice applies mostly to people who are new to guitar and who have difficulty with their timing once they stop strumming. You don't see experienced guitarists playing air guitar during skipped beats. They mostly just stop their strumming motion, and their internal clocks allows them to resume on time.

good point Dennis

Many,many times I thought when I uploaded a video I had the timing right 'cos my hand was moving and moving but I was'nt,,I am not a metronome man but sometimes I try for getting the given bpm,,what I more and more do is counting and it sure helps in strumming,in pickin and some simple lead,,

That brings me back to my yought and saw many guitarists mumble there lips and than at that time I thought there were doing some lyrics,now I know better and know they were COUNTING,,not loud but in there mind, but saw the lips!!!

Willem

Edit..keep the strumming hand moving was a great thing to learn from Neil(top secret)!!!!

Maybe a simple song with many possibilty's in vary the strumming and mute or skip a beat is ''a horse with no name'' or ''knockin on heavens door'' I don't think there exercises lesson for that here!!

Well Neil's advice on this is crucial and a fundamental thing, so I think it's really good that you want to break the habit of not doing that.

Simple excercises, hmmmm........well start moving your hand up and down, at the speed of 8ths, or 16ths (not playing anything), start strumming the 1, 2, 3 and 4. Start adding upstrokes whén you want to and make sure your hand keeps moving.

And like Den says, shoot a video, upload it for review, I'm sure Neil would like to advice some more on this, since it's really important.

Ness

Edit: And no, you don't have to use big strokes, especially when playing at the speed of 16th notes.

You could try with a simple song and play it very slowly so that you can get the feel of missing the beat by not touching the strings and keep your hand moving when required by the rhythm notation.

Marc