Understanding how to strum a guitar properly is one of the most basic things you can learn as a beginner. You’ll never be able to strum along to either yourself singing or accompany someone else unless you first master this fundamental technique.

Strumming involves using a pick or plectrum to strum across the strings while you are holding different chord shapes. Normally you complete a full pattern of each strum for every chord you play in the progression. A chord progression is when a sequence of chords is played one after the other.

While most popular songs are written in 4/4 time there are also many others written in other time signatures especially 3/4 and 6/8. It’s important therefore to also learn to strum in those time signatures. At first it can seem a bit tricky but with the use of a good metronome and regular practice you can master even odd time signatures such as 9/8 if really wanted to!

My best advice for strumming would be to use a soft nylon pick of .60mm. These are hard enough to make your guitar loud and give you some resistance against the strings yet soft enough to make your strumming sound smooth and pleasant. This is the ideal combination you need to achieve.

Secondly, you don’t need to know hundreds of strums in order to play hundreds of songs, just a handful of the most used and versatile strums will get you going for many beginner guitar songs.