Hey, how’s it going guys this is Jon McLennan with Guitar Control, excited to bring you this video lesson “Acoustic Strumming Pattern” in the style
of Brian May from Queen. What an amazing guitar player he was.
We’re starting on a D chord. And the song for reference here is “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”. We have a D chord and the rhythm that we’re going to do is basically one and, two and, then you don’t play three, and four. So with eighth note patterns, always try to keep your hand in the motion of playing eighth notes: one and, two and, three and, four and.
That means down, up, down, up, and then on beat three. What I’m going to
do is omit playing on beat three. My hand always keeps that sort of the motor of the tune, is that eighth note. .
We’ve got a D chord and then the thing about this tune is, it has a swing or shuffle feel. So the eighth notes, instead of one and, two and, three and, four, they’re one, and two, and three, and four, almost like a blues if you play like a blues shuffle.
We’re going to play D for two bars, G for one bar, C for two beats, G for two beats and then D for the first section of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”.
Again, that doesn’t have to stay like that the whole time. Like, for instance, when I go to the two-chords per measure, I’m playing one, two, and three, and four.
A little different variation on that pattern, but in essence it’s still like that eighth note swing. Here it is again.
So check out that tune and just practice your eighth note strumming. You may know how to play a D, and G, and C, and that may be easy for you, but getting to the right feel and playing the chords clean, doing it with
a metronome and swinging takes some work.
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