Guitar Thumb Strumming For Beginners

When anyone picks up a guitar the first thing they do is strum the strings. It is like a force field around the player that before attempting to play something recognisable they have do strum the strings.
Once you have done your initial strumming then you can focus on playing a song or some chords. The key to guitar strumming is to keep it simple and clear. Many beginners strum away and end up with a complete mush of sound that is not pleasing to the ear.

Guitar Thumb Strumming

When you are a complete beginners you should learn to strum woth your thumb. When you are more accomplished you can try plectrums and guitar picks. You will learn your way aroung the guitar if you use your thumb for strumming in the first few months. It's a skill that will always hold you in good stead when you become an great guitar player. (That's what your aiming for, right?)
The basic strum is to push your thumb from the top to the bottom accross the strings. The strings should all be the same volume and the strum should be evenely times accross the strings. This basic strum pattern should be prcaticed for hours and hours until you can do it with your eyes closed and you are half asleep.
What you will find out is that downward strum pattern will show how well you are fretting the chords with your left hand. You must learn to eliminate any buzzes and damped strings and listening to each of the strings while strumming through them will teach you this skill. Each time you pick up your guitar your hands will adjust to a good playing position whereby the left hand is fretting the chords properly and the right hand is strumming evenly and tunefully.

The Second Stage for Guitar Thumb Strumming

Once you have mastered the basic strum shown above you then need to adapt it to only play certain strings. This is because not all standard chords cover all strings on the guitar. For Example the "D" chord should only be strummed across the 4 strings d through to top E. There are more advanced chord versions that do work across all the strings but it is usefull to be able to strum consistently across 3, 4, 5 or 6 strings depending on what you want to play.
Do not progress to other strum patterns until you can sit with you guitar and strum whatever number of strings you want to play without making a mistake. Once you have learnt this you can forget about it. Its like riding a bike - you never forget how to do it - it becomes second nature.