Mark Hanson, December, 2025
l’m known for my fingerpicking knowledge and ability, but I have extensive strumming experience as well. In fact, my first meaningful guitar experience was playing rhythm guitar in my junior high rock’n’roll band “We the People”! Even with that name we didn’t play patriotic songs; mostly Beatles and Byrds… and, unfortunately, we weren’t old enough or advanced enough to dream up or play the “Star Spangled Banner” ala Jimi Hendrix!
Like fingerpicking, good strumming is an art. The point of this tip is getting the rhythm right while changing chords. Listen to any competent strummer on guitar; you will hear an Em chord before every new chord in a tune! This occurs because your fretting hand needs 1/2 beat to move to the new chord position, and the strumming hand strums the three treble strings on the final upswing, the final 1/2 beat. These three strings, of course, constitute an Em chord when unfretted.
I have a joke about this: when a piano player wants to make a little fun of guitar players they play an Em chord for 1/2 beat before each new chord — a completely unnecessary exercise on piano, but intrinsic on strummed guitar.
To fit seamlessly into the flow of the rhythm, guitarists release each chord on the final eighth note. Doing this makes the fretting hand fit seamlessly into the flow of the rhythm. If you hold on too long you might be late to the next chord, or the audience will actually hear you release the strings too late, in an unrhythmic, unmusical fashion. Release the chord AS you strum the final upswing.
The thing to remember: you have already filled the listeners’ ears with the previous chord for four beats, eight beats, whatever. What they need to hear is the NEW chord directly on its first beat. They already know the old chord — give them the new one at the right time!
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