Shuffle chuck is an intermediate 4/4 strumming pattern in eighth notes. Written in arrows it is DU XU DU XU, swung at 55%.
The player above plays it at 104 BPM over the chords A – D – E. Press Start to hear it, or slow it down to see each stroke.
161 strumming patterns from beginner to funk and Bollywood, played with real chords, with slow motion and a moving strum hand.
Shuffle chuck is an intermediate 4/4 strumming pattern in eighth notes. Written in arrows it is DU XU DU XU, swung at 55%.
The player above plays it at 104 BPM over the chords A – D – E. Press Start to hear it, or slow it down to see each stroke.
| Count | 1 | & | 2 | & | 3 | & | 4 | & |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strum | ↓ | ↑ | ✕ | ↑ | ↓ | ↑ | ✕ | ↑ |
| Hand | ↓ | ↑ | ↓ | ↑ | ↓ | ↑ | ↓ | ↑ |
Say the count out loud and strum only on the bold words: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
↓ 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.
DU XU DU XU fills all eight eighth-note slots in the bar: four down and four up. Four strokes fall on the beat and four between beats. The bar ends with an up strum on the “&” of 4: many players let go of the chord there and change while the open strings ring.
The swung down-ups of a shuffle with a chuck on 2 and 4. The chuck lands where a drummer’s snare would be, so one guitar sounds like a small band.
On every “&”, brush the top three or four strings, a little softer than the downs.
Hit beat 2 and beat 4 harder (the bold arrows), with a bigger swing rather than a tighter grip.
On beat 2 and beat 4, strum with the strings muted for a dry “chk” instead of a chord.
At 55% swing every second eighth arrives late. At 104 BPM a straight eighth lasts 288 ms; swung, the on-beat one lasts about 393 ms and the off-beat one 184 ms.
At 104 BPM a bar lasts 2.31 seconds and you play 208 strokes a minute. Slow motion at ×0.5 brings that down to 104.
Blues lives on the triplet. A shuffle swings its eighth notes long-short, and slow blues spells out all three eighth notes of every beat in 12/8. Play them over the twelve-bar blues: four bars of the I chord, two of IV, two of I, then V, IV, I and V.
Change it in the pattern builder
Count “1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &” and play down on beat 1, up on the “&” of 1, accented chuck on beat 2, up on the “&” of 2, down on beat 3, up on the “&” of 3, accented chuck on beat 4 and up on the “&” of 4.
104 BPM here, 208 strokes a minute. Learn it near 62 BPM; songs with this feel usually sit between 80 and 140 BPM.
It is intermediate: the hard part is the change from the up to the chuck on beat 2. Get D DU D DU and D DU UDU steady first, then take this one from 62 BPM.
Lift your fretting fingers just enough that the strings stop sounding, or let your strumming palm land on them as you strum. It should sound like a snare drum.