ChordWiki See it. Hear it. Play it.

Guitar & ukulele

Strumming patterns

Know your chords but can’t make them sound like a song? Strumming is the missing piece. Start with all downstrums, work up to the famous D DU UDU, then try chucks, boom-chick, waltz, 6/8 and swing. Every pattern plays along with real chords at any tempo.

How to read strumming patterns

↓ strum down↑ strum up✕ chuck — slap the strings to mute themB pick a single bass note miss — keep your hand moving

The secret to every pattern: your strumming hand never stops. It swings down on every beat (the numbers) and up on every “&” in between, like a pendulum. A pattern is just that constant motion with some strums hitting the strings and some missing them. That’s why a missed strum still keeps its place in the count.

Beginner

All downstrums 4/4 · One strum down on every beat — the first pattern everyone learns. Down-up eighth notes 4/4 · Down on every beat, up on every “and” in between: eight even strums per bar. D DU UDU — the most common strum 4/4 · Down, down-up, up-down-up: the strum behind countless pop, folk and campfire songs, sometimes called “Old Faithful” (and, on ukulele, the island strum). D D DU DU — the driving pop strum 4/4 · Two plain downstrums, then down-ups to finish the bar.

Next steps

The chuck strum (D X U – U X U) 4/4 · Replace the downstrums on beats 2 and 4 with a “chuck” — slap the strings with the side of your palm to mute them — and the strum turns into a groove with a built-in snare drum. Bass-strum (boom-chick) 4/4 · Pick a single bass note on the beat, then strum the chord: “boom-chick, boom-chick”.

Styles

Waltz strum (3/4) 3/4 · Three beats to the bar: a bass note on 1, then two strums — “oom-pah-pah”. 6/8 strum 6/8 · Six quick counts per bar, felt as two big beats — “ONE two three FOUR five six”. Ska & reggae off-beat 4/4 · Short, choppy strums on every off-beat — the “&” between the beats — with the beats themselves left silent. Swing (shuffle) strum 4/4 · Down-up eighth notes with a long-short bounce: each downstrum lasts a little longer than the upstrum after it.