Transform Your Strumming
From "Plain" To "Extraordinary"
The Essential Techniques Of Developing Your Own Personal Style
Some guitar players clearly have a distinctive style that is all their own, and it even flows through into playing the simple stuff.
Let me give you an example - recently I turned on a Jack Johnson tune, and noticed that from the very first time he strummed his guitar, it wasn't a "stock" strum. In other words, it wasn't just like strumming a full six-string G major chord.
Something was different.
In this particular case, he was hitting the root note of the chord first, then following through with the strum. Later in the same bar, he had a very rhythmic muted strum as well. Those two simple changes made a huge difference to the flavor of the song - indeed, they defined the very character of the song.
And that's only two small techniques of dozens that he uses to create his signature laid-back, highly rhythmic strumming sound!
Hi - my name is Jonathan Boettcher, and over the last ten years I’ve helped more than 15,000 guitar players achieve breakthroughs in their guitar playing, using just a few rarely-taught concepts that most guitar teachers avoid like the plague.
Today I'd like to introduce you to a way of playing rhythm guitar that will completely transform how you express yourself through rhythm, and lead directly to developing your very own uniquely personal style.
Tremendous Untapped Musical Potential
Strumming is one of those areas of guitar that is often overlooked, and yet holds such incredible potential for transforming and personalizing the sound of beginner to intermediate guitar players.
When you first get started playing guitar, you learn some basic strum patterns, and then usually, chords become the big challenge and a lot of time and energy goes into learning new shapes and getting those fingers to do what you want them to do. By the time the chords are down, the guitar player has a fair bit of experience in strumming and is looking for a new challenge, and so maybe they start looking at soloing, or playing riffs.
However, just because you've done something a lot doesn't mean there's nothing left to learn in that area.
The truth is, many guitar players with decades of experience are still strumming at a fairly beginner level. Sure, they're consistent and able to get through songs, and don't have any problems from that perspective...
And yet, their strumming lacks expression.
It's just, well... plain strumming!
My friend, if you'd like to take your strumming to the next level, let me describe what that could look like.
The World of Expressive Strumming
One day, you discover that you don't have to strum all six strings, all the time. This opens a major door, and pretty soon you begin experimenting with different forms of strumming that can produce everything from tightly-controlled, pulsating or driving rhythms, to soft accents. With practice, you're able to integrate these into your everyday playing, and congratulations - your strumming just took a major step forward.
Later, you begin experimenting with different muting techniques, which helps you further refine and control your sound. Then one day, you start adding in rhythmic hits... and discover you can create what sounds just like a simple drum beat, right in the middle of your rhythm! Kick drum and snare... sweet!
The further you go down this road, you notice that certain techniques begin to really appeal to you, and you focus on those ones more and more. Pretty soon, you've developed your personal style of playing rhythm guitar...
How To Develop Your Personal Style
Some guitar players have a very distinctive style that is all their own. They can play the same songs as everyone else, and yet, you just know it's them that is playing.
When I first started learning guitar, I had a friend who was like that. I could (and did) hear plenty of other guitar players play the exact same songs he did, and yet every single time he was playing, I could tell without even looking.
And I'm not talking about soloing here - I'm talking about playing rhythm guitar. In some cases, fairly simple rhythm.
But personal style and expression - once developed - can come through in even the simple stuff so strongly that it becomes instantly recognizable.
It all comes from the multitude of different ways that we interact with our guitar. If you only have one or two ways to strum that guitar, then even if you're changing up your rhythm and tempo, it's always going to sound pretty much the same as the last song.
However, if you start adding in subtle variations, selectively targeting only some of your strings at any given time, or muting your strums in a particular way, very soon you will discover you have the power to make your strum very, very different from song to song.
In Secrets of Expressive Strumming, more than 20 of these subtle variations are discussed. Each one can be combined with one or more of the others to create further variations.
If you do the math on that, that's going to produce a minimum of 20x20 = 400 subtle variations you can use to make your strumming more expressive.
Now, if you compare two guitar players who are playing the same chord progression, and one has 2 different ways of strumming, and the other has 400... which one do you think will be able to best adapt their strumming to the song?
Secrets of Expressive Strumming
Secrets of Expressive Strumming is designed to give you a number of different techniques you can use to make your rhythm guitar playing far more expressive and dynamic.
We'll start with a proper understanding of how rhythm is fractioned, because that's foundation of everything we do as rhythm guitar players.
From there, we'll start filling your bag of strumming tricks with different ways to craft something that is capable of being very low and muted, yet still intense, progressing all the way through a dynamic range up to a full wide open expression that is full of life and energy.
By the end of this course, you'll have the tools to adapt your rhythm playing to "say" whatever you want to in a particular song.
Craft Dynamic, Song-Fitting Rhythms On Demand
In Secrets of Expressive Strumming, we’ll be examining techniques and principles that I’ve seen just about every top-rate guitar player using - techniques that have become so natural to them they probably haven't thought consciously about them in years. However, to the uninitiated, it can seem like there's this big gap between "normal" strumming, and the kind of expressive, dynamic strumming they hear their favorite artists using. Here's just a small sample of what you'll find inside:
Is This Course At MY Skill Level?
It can be difficult to know in advance if a particular guitar course is designed for right where you're at, right now, as a guitar player. So, here are a few thoughts to help you decide if Secrets of Expressive Strumming is right for you:
Pre-requisite skills:
As you can see, I've not set the bar very high to get into this course. I would call this course ideal for an "intermediate or advanced beginner." It is also quite possible you're a confident strummer with loads of experience, but:
Sometimes players advance in different areas at different speeds, so don't think about your overall playing here, think about your strumming specifically. Is that an area that needs some work?
BONUS: Course Supplement Book (PDF)
The course supplement book included with the course truly supplements and adds to what you will find in the video. From additional theory to detailed discussions of rhythms and strumming patterns, you will find this an invaluable study tool. Of course, you will find all the tabs used in the course in the book.
The book will be available to download in PDF format from inside the member's area.
BONUS: 13 Drum Tracks
Also included in the course is a simple drum track, played at 60 bpm, and then every increment of 5 bpm after that all the way to 120 bpm. These tracks are a great practice tool for zeroing in on your dynamic expression as they will really help keep you locked into the groove, while still giving you a bit of inspiration from the rhythm.
Yes! Let's Transform My Strumming Today!
Secrets of Expressive Strumming is laser-targeted on helping you transform your strumming style, making it more dynamic, rhythmic, and expressive. You will learn new techniques and new ways of approaching rhythm parts, giving you the tools you need to develop your own personal style of playing rhythm guitar. This is so much more than just simple strumming!
Let's Get Started!
Make your guitar playing more interesting, dynamic, and musical!
$40
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Let’s work together to make your rhythm guitar playing more expressive and dynamic than ever before!
To Your Success,
PS. The Secrets of Expressive Strumming course will greatly improve your ability dynamically match your strumming to a given song, giving you the skills to turn simple songs into beautiful, dynamic, and expressive works of art.
PS. If for any reason at all you’re not satisfied, you’re protected by my 100% “No Weasel Clauses” 60-Day GUARANTEE