The most awkward question I get asked is, “What’s the strumming pattern for this?” Because there’s no real answer to it. It’s not like a chord progression where there’s a right chord and a wrong chord. You can use different strumming patterns and it will still work. It’s an important skill to be able to pick your own strumming patterns.

So in this post I’ve listed some of the most common strumming patterns around. Ones you can try out and see if they fit the song.

For more info on strumming, read the posts on strumming notation and strumming for dummies; and the ebook I wrote How to Play Ukulele Strums.

Some Basics

Before you start strumming, go through these steps:

Step 1: Clap along with the song: If the singer was to shout, “Hey everybody, clap along,” what would you do? (Assuming you’re less surly than me and would just fold your arms and look moody.)

Step 2: Pretend you’re in The Ramones: If you were going to start the song by shouting one, two, three, four what would you do? Try counting through the song repeating that all the way (if counting to four doesn’t fit, try counting to three).

Step 3: Try a few strumming patterns: Try fitting a strumming pattern to the song. Fit them so the down strums in the pattern match with the numbers you count. So a dead simple pattern would be all down strums: strum down when you count one, when you count two, when you count three and when you count four.

4/4 Strumming Patterns

By far the most common time signature around is 4/4 (“four four”). If you can count along to a song, “one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four,” and it fits, try out these strumming patterns.

Strumming Pattern 1: d – d u – u d –

This one crops up in so many ukulele songs. It’s simple to play. But – because it misses the third down strum – it has a slightly syncopated feel to it which makes it more interesting.

Sounds like:

d-du-ud-

Use it in:

Charlieissocoollike – A Song About Acne
She and Him – Gonna Get Along Without You Now
WIUO/Outkast – Hey Ya!
Kate Micucci & William H Macy – It’s Time to Get Laid
Noah and the Whale – Jealous Kind of Love
Zee Avi – Kantoi
Zee Avi – Just You and Me
In double time: Cosmo Jarvis – She’s Got You
Nevershoutnever – Cheatercheaterbestfriendeater
Andrews Sisters/Sophie Madeleine – Bei Mir Bist du Schon

Strumming Pattern 2: d – d u – u d u

Very similar to strumming pattern 1, but with another up strum at the end.

Sounds like:

d-du-udu

Use it in:

Ingrid Michaelson – You and I
Paolo Nutini – High Hopes
I Wanna Be Like You
Misty Miller – Remember
Paramore – Interlude: Moving On
Brendan Maclean – Stupid
Keston Cobblers’ Club – Pett Level
Amanda Palmer – Ukulele Anthem
Beirut – A Candle’s Fire

Strumming Pattern 3: d – d – d u d u

Sounds like:

d-d-dudu

Use it in:

WIUO – I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
OK Go – This Too Shall Pass
Keston Cobblers Club – You Go
The Pogues – Fiesta
Neutral Uke Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers
Ewan Wardrop/50 Cent – In Da Club
Daniel Johnston – Living Life

Strumming Pattern 4: d – d u d u d u

A really straight-forward strum useful for punky stuff.

Sounds like:

d-dududu

Use it in:

UOGB – Teenage Kicks
Ryan Gosling – You Always Hurt the Ones You Love
The Beach Boys – Wouldn’t It Be Nice
Sufjan Stevens – Christmases Past
The Smiths – The Queen is Dead
Train – Sing Together
The Vaccines – Wrecking Bar

Half-Bar Patterns

If you’re looking for a strumming pattern for a song where the chords change regularly (twice a bar) try out these.

Strumming Pattern 5: d – d u

Sounds like:

d-du

Use it in:

Death Cab for Cutie – I Will Follow You Into the Dark
WIUO – Short People
Sesame Street
McFly – Love is Easy
Zooey Deschanel – You Forgot about Valentine’s Day
Zooey Deschanel – What are You Doing New Year’s Eve
GOTYE – Somebody That I Used to Know

Strumming Pattern 6: d u x u

Sounds like:

duxu

Use it in:

Hellogoodbye – Betrayed by Bones
Allo Darlin – Tallulah

Two Bar Pattern

If the chords change much more slowly, you could just double up on the 4/4 pattern. Or you could make it more interesting by using a two bar pattern.

Strumming Pattern 7:
d – d u – u d u
– u d u – u d –

Henceforth to be known as the ‘Sophie Madeleine strum’.

Sounds like:

d-du-udu-udu-ud-

Use it in:

Sophie Madeleine – The Knitting Song
Sophie Madeleine – You Are My Favourite
Sophie Madeleine – I Just Can’t Stop Myself
Rocky and Balls – Love Cake
Bella Hemming – Play Guitar
Peggy Sue – February Snow
Antarctica Takes It – C&F

Emphasis

Strumming Pattern 8: d u D U d u D U

Sounds like:

duDUduDU

Use it in:

Florence and the Machine – Kiss With a Fist
Rocky Horror Picture Show – Time Warp
Sophie Madeleine – Take Your Love With Me
Sufjan Stevens – Lumberjack Christmas
Chuck Berry – Run Run Rudolph

Strumming Pattern 9: d u x u d u x u

Sounds like:

duxudu

Use it in:

Nevershoutnever – Biggest Fan
Noah and the Whale – Five Years Time

Reggae Strums

With a reggae strum you’re always going to be accenting the off beats. In the other strums here you’re always playing a strong beat on the ‘one’ of the count. Here you’re accenting other beats. It’s not always obvious what’s going on so I’ve included a click track with these.

Strumming Pattern 10: – d – d – d – d

Here you’re accenting the beats between the count.

Sounds like:

-d-d-d-d

Use it in:

April Smith – Colors
Weezer/Sarah Blackwood – Say It Ain’t So

Strumming Pattern 11: – – d u – – d –

Here the accent is on the ‘two’ and ‘four’ beats.

Sounds like:

–du–d-

Use it in:

WIUO – The Israelites

3/4 Time

If counting, “one, two, three, four,” doesn’t fit with the song you’re playing, try counting in threes instead. If that works, try these patterns.

Strumming Pattern 12: d – d u d –

Sounds like:

d-dud-

Use it in:

Amanda Palmer – In My Mind
John Denver/Ballard C Boyd – Christmas for Cowboys
Weezer – Christmas Song
OK Go – Needing/Getting

Strumming Pattern 13: d – d u d u

Sounds like:

d-dudu

Use it in:

WIUO – Blue Smoke
Kelli Rae Powell – Some Bridges are Good to Burn
Walk off the Earth – Little Boxes
Bon Iver/Kina Grannis – Michicant

Changing the Patterns

There are tweaks you can make to all these strumming patterns.

Swing Them

When you swing a strumming pattern you make the down strum last slightly longer than the up strum. That gives the strum an off-kilter feel to it.

You can do this with any of the strums. For example, strum pattern 4 would sound like this when swung.

Swing Strum

Change the Tempo

You make any of these strums faster or slower than I’ve played them. In general, the more complicated the strum, the better it’ll sound slowed down. The more straight forward it is, the better it works at high speed.

For More on Strumming…

Pick up a copy of my ebook How to Play Ukulele Strums

Misty Miller – Remember (Chords)

If I turn into a crazy cat-lady, I think my millions will probably go to trees. Which is why I’m entirely won over to Misty Miller after she did a song for the Woodland Trust.

For this song, I’ve written up the album version. Although I prefer solo version (much less Mrazy).

Suggested Strumming

This strumming pattern will do you well:

Use that twice for each chord in the verses and once for each chord in the chorus.

Like this:

Main Strum

Twiddly Bits

If you want to do the little twiddly bit at the beginning it’s:

G – Gsus4 – D – D7 – Em – Em7 – C – Cadd9

Use this strumming pattern:

With the main chord (G, D, Em, C) in the first bar; and the fancy chord (Gsus4, D7 etc) in the second bar. So it sounds like this:

Intro Strum

She also throws in a Cmaj7 after the C at the end of the chorus.

Buy MP3 on iTunes.

Still no decent Internet here, so a rather shortened post this week. So go ahead and leave your favourite of the week in the comments to give people something to listen to.

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Jim D’Ville looks at the science of learning to play by ear.

New French ukulele magazine.

The Rights of Man on Uker Tabs.

MP3s: Big favourite of mine, Lila Burns has an album of demos up on Bandcamp. Helen Arney was on the Infinite Monkey radio show/podcast and you can download the track she played free on Bandcamp. Diane Extein is doing a ukulele songwriting challenge and putting up a free song a week on Bandcamp.

I’ve been away from decent Internet all week, so please do enlighten me and everyone else with any (non-Vedder) links you’ve seen this week.

Waltzing Matilda (Tab)

Waltzing Matilda (MP3)

Another example of a national anthem that isn’t. This one is a bit more murdery, but still preferable to a song expressing pride at being girt by sea.

This arrangement is pretty easy. There’s no fancy picking, it’s all done with the thumb. The only thing to watch out for is a bit of a journey up the neck.

In other news, I’m on holiday at the moment and having some Internet connection problems. I’m relying on the hideous, caveman-like experience of 3G. So if there are no Friday and Saturday posts that’ll be why.

Requested by Art Crocker.

This work by Ukulele Hunt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

It’s nearly the half way point of the year. Already. So here’s a quick round-up of my favourite videos so far (in the order they showed up on the blog).

One thing I’ve noticed putting this together: the number of pro musicians using the ukulele has crowded out the bedroom players. Whether that’s established musicians picking up the uke (Amanda Palmer and Eddie Vedder), new acts with the uke up front (Misty Miller) or bands with the uke as part of the texture (Seryn and Keston Cobblers’ Club).

Leave your favourite(s) of the year in the comments.

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The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You (Chords)

Saying, “I love you,” might be hard but saying, “I love this song certainly isn’t.” Makes for a pretty easy transfer from piano to ukulele as well – which isn’t always the case.

Suggested Strumming

A good main strumming pattern would be:

d – d u

In the verses and choruses use that twice for D, once for G, four times for D. That sounds like this:

Strumming Pattern

You can do just a down strum for the Bm and A at the end of the verse before heading back to the main pattern for G. Watch out for the end of verse 4. There you add a down strum for G and back to the main strum on D.

In the bridge section, do the main strum once for each chord.

Then the tricky bit. Play just single notes for the ones in brackets (so that’s E-string open then E-string at the second fret) then you’re back to G for a down strum. It’s a bit tricky to play the usual G chord. I prefer to use a barre across the second fret (which you can put in place to play the F#). Or you could just play a single G note. After that, two down strums on A.

All together that goes like this:

Bridge

Twiddly Bits

You can recreate the piano part on uke fairly convincingly with this picking:

Use your thumb on the C, index on the E and middle on the A. Which sounds like this:

Picking Pattern

More Avetts

Murder in the City

If I ever launch a range of ukuleles, I’m going to get Kimo Hussey to demonstrate them. That guy has incredible touch. As well as Kimo showing off his DeVine, this week has videos from The Vespers, The Jive Aces, Peter Brooke Turner of the UOGB under his Tony Penultimate pseudonym and plenty more besides.

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I couldn’t find much information on KoAloha’s Gumbalele other than this video (thanks to Mark). Looks like it’s part of KoAloha’s efforts towards helping the Japanese Red Cross. On the subject of which, KoAloha are giving away an MP3 including Alvin Okami and Herb Ohta Jr to help raise money.

Eddie Vedder’s ukulele sold for over $17,000 last week, and now Jack Johnson is getting in on the act with a signed KoAloha.

I can’t imagine wanting something this big and gaudy myself but these Fusion ukulele back packs are an interesting development. I’m not sure if I like or hate the idea of strapping multiple gig bags together and lugging them on your back.

The ukulele show Bossarocker did for Chorlton Arts Radio is now available to listen online. You can hear two hours of ukulele goodness including sessions from Pyjama Party and David Leech on her new website.

Dhani ‘son of George’ Harrison is busting out his Dad’s ukes on his new album.

Last week‘s video of Peter ‘UK Uke Orch’ Moss had me doing a bit of research on Eric Clapton’s uke playing. I was familiar with Intro and Outro but – given the song also claims to feature, “Princess Anne on sousaphone,” – had assumed the phrase, “Eric Clapton on ukulele,” was also a gag. Turns out it really was him. And the line-up of the song performed by the cast of a kids’ TV show is even more impressive.

Three very pleasant mp3s from Aussie uke-led collective Inland Sea on Triple J.

Where to find an ukulele in which you can hide your alcohol?

Pictures: Little elephant, big ukulele, U is for ukulele, Please Do Not Climb on Ukulele!

In the comments: In the barre chord post I noted that it was easier to play barre chords if you bring your elbow into your side – but couldn’t explain why. SamD knew:

In answer to your above question, bringing the elbow in to your side means that the vector in which the finger muscles are pulling is perpendicular to the fretboard, allowing greater pressure with less effort. Just a little biomechanics for you there…

Parish notice: I’m off to the Lake District next week. I’ve got posts lined up, but it might take me longer than usual to reply to emails/comments/tweets/court summonses.