hey guys Brad from simple guitar.com here and if you have been struggling with your timing with strumming today we're going to help with that I have a very simple exercise that I'm going to show you today that's going to help build your internal sense of timing and Rhythm and it's really quite simple what we're going to do is we're going to play an alternating pattern of quarter notes which if you don't remember what quarter notes are quarter notes get one beat each so if we have a measure that has four beats we would strum the quarter notes using any chord and just count it one 2 3 4 now the key to that is that you keep the beat steady one of the biggest reasons why people struggle with their sense of timing and rhythm is they don't keep track of the beat and the beat does not stay steady enough so that's what we want to do we want to keep it nice and steady just one 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 okay that should be pretty simple right now after we play a measure of that so after four beats of that we're going to switch and play a totally different rhythm in this case today what we're going to do is we're going to play a measure of eighth notes now eighth notes are half the value of a quarter note so if we play a quarter note we let that ring out for one beat an eighth note by itself is just half a beat so it's shorter which means we play two for every quarter note so we would count that as one and two and three and four and and when we strum we strum down on the beat on the 1 two 3 4 and we strum up on the and so we'd go one and two and three and four and so we're always up on and we're always down on the beat as long as we're playing eighth notes that changes later but not today okay so here's what we're going to do now is we're going to play a measure of chord we're going to go 1 2 3 4 and then without stopping like I am right now we're going to switch and change to eighth notes on the same beat that means your playing has to be twice as fast you don't want to just go one 2 3 4 and then go down up down up okay don't do that we have to go twice as fast with our eighth note so it'll go 1 2 3 4 and then 1 and 2 and three and four and one now after a measure of eighth notes we're going to go back and play a measure of quarter notes and then a measure of eighth notes and a measure of quarter notes and a measure of eighth notes we're just going to keep alternating okay doing this switching these rhythms and trying to keep it nice and steady is what's going to help you keep track of the beat and build your internal sense of Rhythm and timing which is important so let's dive into it and let's do it I'm just playing a G5 chord it's the third fret on your first and second strings using your pinky and your third finger and then the second fret on your fifth string and your third third fret on your sixth string okay you can really do this with any chord you can do it with a chord progression but today we're just going to do it with a G chord keep it nice and simple and if you're playing an acoustic guitar of course this works too I know I'm playing electric right now but that does not matter this can be done on any guitar okay so let's try that one 2 3 quarter notes one 2 3 now eighth notes one and two and three and now quarter notes 1 2 3 eighth notes 1 and 2 and 3 and quarter notes 1 2 3 4 now eighth notes 2 and three and four and downstrokes 2 3 now eighth notes 1 and 2 and three and four now quarter notes so keep it steady eighth notes 1 and two and three and quarter notes three four eighth notes 1 and 2 and 3 and quarter notes 1 2 3 eighth notes 1 and two and three and four and stop we're going to call it right there for now now if you want to do more of that you totally can but you want to aim for getting that nice and smooth for the transition position from quarter notes to eighth notes to be seamless to not have to stop or do anything but keep your hand moving now you're going to notice whether you're playing the quarter notes or the eighth notes your hand should be moving at the same speed the speed of your hand should not change because even if you play quarter notes your hand moves down and it moves back up to play the next quarter note right so we're going down up down up down up down up the only difference is when we play the eighth notes we hit strings on the upstroke right so we're going to go down up down up down up down up also make sure your wrist is relaxed and you're not squeezing the life out of your pick if you squeeze your pick too hard it's going to be really hard for you and it's not going to sound good it'll go like this that's all I did is hold my pick Tighter and it sounds like garbage don't strum like that loosen up your grip okay so work on that exercise to make sure that your internal sense of Rhythm and timing is being built by keeping track of the beat and having to switch rhythms is going to force you to get that down so have fun switching from quarter notes to eighth notes you can try this with other rhythms as well if you'd like to see more videos with some different rhythms let me know down in the comments we can do that while we're here I have another gift for you as well if that was helpful for you then go to my website at simple guitar.com /op 10 there I have a PDF guide for you it's 17 pages long and it's called the top 10 things to learn on guitar first now a lot of people get caught up when it comes to learning guitar about I have to learn everything and that's just not true you don't have to learn everything on the guitar but these 10 things and the top 10 things to learn on guitar first are going to get you a lot of bang for your buck and get you a lot of mileage with your playing they're things that I still use all the time I teach them to students all the time and they're just really handy useful things so go to simple guitar.com top10 download that guide for free it'll put you on my mailing list where I will send you more free stuff to help you with your guitar playing and you can unsubscribe at any time no pressure okay so have fun go to simple guitar.com top10 and if you want more help with your strumming then go check out this video next where we're going to do some more and build your own strum patterns