When you're playing rhythm on guitar how do you strum chords?

Question

Do you only strum that chord once when it comes up on top a word or keep strumming that same chord until the next chord comes up?

Answer 1

It depends on what you hear in the song. Assuming you're using tab or playing by ear, the best way to figure out what to do is to listen VERY closely to what the guitar is doing in the song. Sometimes chords are there to be played as an arpeggio (i.e. playing each note of the chord in succession), so you have to listen for that.

Generally speaking though, in faster paced songs you strum for a few beats (listen to the song to get the timing) whereas slower songs tend to use more arpeggios and broken strums (i.e. strum-strum-pause-strum-, etc).

It does help to have some background with music (for the timing, if anything) but even if you don't, you can still make due by training your ears. As I mentioned early, this is done best by listening to the song and doing your best to emulate what's going on there. Just remember that most (popular) songs are in 4/4 time. Here's a basic explanation of that.

http://gardenofpraise.com/key10a.htm

Answer 2

It really depends on the song. More often then not though...you would keep strumming the chord until the next one appeared...that way there is always a constant sound and it doesn't sound empty.

Answer 3

This is why it's necessary to READ MUSIC because along with reading music goes TIMING and the tempo and the way you strum as song depends on the TEMPO of the song.. and you can't get that from TABS