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72 Part II: Setting Up to Play the Blues TEAM LinG
If you’ve never played with a pick before, you may find it takes a little time
and practice to figure out how tightly to hold the pick when strumming (see
Chapter 3 for the correct way to hold a pick). If you grip it too tightly, the
pick gets tripped up in the strings and your right hand doesn’t flow smoothly.
On the other hand, if you hold the pick too loosely, it may spring out of your
fingers when you strike the strings! The important thing is to keep the right
hand and arm flowing smoothly while you find just the right grip.
Stroking down . . .
You may not have thought of basic strumming as “executing a downstroke,”
but that’s what you’re doing when you go to naturally strike the strings on a
guitar. When you get to more complex strumming patterns — especially ones
involving syncopation — you distinguish between downstrokes and upstrokes
(see the next section). But for now, focus on the more popular and prevalent
downstroke strum.
A downstroke (indicated with the symbol 2 ) is played with a downward
motion of the pick, toward the floor — the way you naturally strike a guitar.
You can strum multiple strings or pick an individual string with a downstroke;
here you focus on many, but later in the book you play single notes
with downstrokes.
. . . And stroking up
An upstroke (indicated by the symbol 4) is played upward, toward the ceiling,
in the opposite direction of a downstroke. So instead of dragging your pick
down toward the floor, as you did in a downstroke, you start from a position
below the first string and drag your pick upward across the strings, from first
to sixth.
This motion may seem a little less natural and comfortable than a downstroke,
but with practice, you can perform upstrokes as easily and with as
much control as downstrokes.
In an upstroke, you don’t need to worry about hitting all the strings. The top
three or four strings are usually sufficient. For example, when playing an E
chord with an upstroke, you don’t have to strum the strings all the way from
the first to the sixth, just up to about the third or fourth string. There are
exceptions to this rule, but generally, in the blues, you don’t hit as many
strings on an upstroke strum as you do in a downstroke.