We look at playing the Ukulele on the off-beats and adding percussive elements to our strumming. The off-beats lie within the spaces between our usual counting of 1-2-3-4
We look at playing the Ukulele on the off-beats and adding percussive elements to our strumming.
The off-beats lie within the spaces between our usual counting of 1-2-3-4 and can add an interesting feel and sound to our strumming technique. We call these spaces the 'and', so our counting becomes 1-and-2-and-3-and-4
Exercise 1 - Strumming and muting
Strum a G major chord
Then we try to mute the strings by placing our strumming hand on the strings, which stops the vibration and the sound
Practice this motion of playing and muting until it feels comfortable
Exercise 2 - Counting and playing a chord on the 'and'
To achieve the silence after each strummed chord, we need to try quickly relaxing our fingers of our chord playing hand just after each strum. This can also stop the vibration and the sound of the strings instead of using our strumming hand each time
Exercise 3 - Percussive strumming
Still playing the chord on the 'and', we can now use our strumming hand to add more percussive sounds
On beat 1 and with a down strum we mute (by relaxing our chord playing hand like in the exercise before)
On the 'and' we play the chord
Then we loop this motion on the other beats and off-beats and try keep counting so we start to be aware and feel the beats
'Up, downs' - to add even more exciting elements to our strumming we can use our strumming hand finger or with a pick, to get the 'up and down' strumming motions - Watching and hearing the strumming sound in the video will really help you to get the feeling and how to use this technique on the Ukulele!
