Beginner strumming patterns – Pt.3 Classic ‘Run to you’ pattern

Hi there,

In this third chapter in beginners strumming patterns we’re going to look at an extension of our 2 bar pattern that covers 2 bars.

So the previous pattern went as follows:

So for our next step in varying up this pattern a little more is to place another tie in the second bar on the first half of beat 3 which will look like this:

So you’ve got Down, Down, Up and then 3 x Up, Down, Up.

This is a really common and versatile pattern. To extend this even further what we can do is change chords just before each tie which produces the following example:

Here i’ve used exactly the same strumming pattern as we just went through but introduced 3 chord changes, from G to D to Am to C. This is a widely used pattern in many popular songs. Run to you by Bryan Adams uses this (chords are Em, G, D, A normally with capo on Fret 2)

So practice these with various different chord progressions and you’ll find it’s a really nice pattern to play around with. Also by changing ‘off’ the beat you’ll vary up your rhythms, and it’ll be easier to learn songs with off the beat changes. For beginners it’s also a great way of improving your muscle memory by changing chords more regularly.

Many thanks for reading

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

James Schofield

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