161 strumming patterns from beginner to funk and Bollywood, played with real chords, with slow motion and a moving strum hand.
Accented strums on the five notes of the 3-2 son clave, the rhythm at the heart of Cuban and Latin music. Written in arrows it is DD D DD.
The player above plays it at 100 BPM over the chords C – G – Am – F. Press Start to hear it, or slow it down to see each stroke.
| Count | 1 | e | & | a | 2 | e | & | a | 3 | e | & | a | 4 | e | & | a |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strum | ↓ | · | · | ↓ | · | · | ↓ | · | · | · | ↓ | · | ↓ | · | · | · |
| Hand | ↓ | ↑ | ↓ | ↓ | ↓ | ↑ | ↓ | ↑ | ↓ | ↑ | ↓ | ↑ | ↓ | ↑ | ↓ | ↑ |
Say the count out loud and strum only on the bold words: 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
↓ down · ↑ up · ✕ chuck (muted) · B bass note · b second bass note · bold: accent · dashed: palm-muted · underlined: short. The last row is the strumming hand, which keeps moving even where nothing sounds.
DD D DD uses five of the sixteen sixteenth-note slots in the bar: all of them down strokes, with the hand swinging past the strings eleven times. Two strokes fall on the beat and three between beats. Beats 2 and 3 have no down strum; the down just before one of them rings across it, the syncopation that makes the pattern lift. The bar ends with a silent swing on the “a” of 4, a free moment to move your fretting hand to the next chord.
The five strums come in two halves: three in the first half of the bar and two in the second, which is what “3-2” means. Once it sits in your hands, start from the other half for the 2-3 clave.
On the “e” of 1, the “&” of 1, beat 2, the “e” of 2, and so on the hand moves without touching the strings. Keep it moving there, in the same down-up rhythm.
Lift the hand just clear of the strings between strokes. Keep that return small: at 100 BPM each sixteenth note lasts 150 ms.
Hit beat 1, the “a” of 1, the “&” of 2, the “&” of 3 and beat 4 harder (the bold arrows), with a bigger swing rather than a tighter grip.
At 100 BPM a bar lasts 2.40 seconds and you play 125 strokes a minute. Slow motion at ×0.5 brings that down to 63.
Latin rhythms grow from the clave, a short pattern of five strokes over two halves that the whole band follows. Guitar parts lock to it with bass notes and short chord stabs, often played softly with the fingers.
Change it in the pattern builder
Count “1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a” and play accented down on beat 1, accented down on the “a” of 1, accented down on the “&” of 2, accented down on the “&” of 3 and accented down on beat 4.
100 BPM here, 125 strokes a minute. Learn it near 60 BPM; songs with this feel usually sit between 90 and 130 BPM.
It is intermediate: the hard part is the down on the “a” of 1 and the silent beat after it. Get D DU D DU and D DU UDU steady first, then take this one from 60 BPM.
Any chords. Try C – G – Am – F, or Am – Dm – E, or Em only, or type your own in Advanced.