Hey Friend,

We were talking about the starting point for good strumming yesterday when I was rudely interrupted by needing to go to the j.o.b….

So let's get back to it.

The question was "where does good strumming come from?" Is it in the elbow, or the wrist?

I believe that the majority of the movement needs to come from the elbow, but there is overwhelming evidence that most guitar players allow some play in the wrist as well.

Strumming in general is easy to do - any kid can pick up a guitar and ape the movement. But doing it well with deliberate precision requires focus on how the arm moves.

I typically explain the strumming movement as imagining your forearm and hand are a wooden 2x4 board and your elbow is a hinge. The idea is that as the pick moves across the strings, there is no play in your wrist - the hand and forearm are one unit.

So theoretically, the only moving part is your elbow.

By using a steady, consistent up and down motion, you develop a strong strumming foundation. 

But it seems that as we get comfortable with the strumming technique and add little riffs and runs to embellish chord progressions, we begin to allow the wrist to relax a bit to help manage any necessary picking.

Once you have a comfort level with strumming and can keep up with the rhythm, it seems to be a natural process to give the wrist some leeway to move. I guess we can consider that “fine tuning the machine."

Again, no two people will ever play guitar identically. It’s virtually impossible since we’re each unique. You have to take the guidance given and make minute adjustments to fit your body design.

You have to find out exactly what works for you.

It’s good to have strict guidelines when you start out. These give you a strong base to work from. But eventually the student must break away from the teacher and nurture her/his own innate talents.

Watch artists you admire and you'll see what I mean.

Ugh… That j.o.b. thing is yanking my chain again. Talk to you tomorrow!

Peace~

Dave