Continuing our series of strumming patterns to popular worship songs, here is Paul Baloche’s Open the Eyes of My Heart (which I’ve taken from the original Paul Baloche recording). This syncopated pattern form the bedrock of so many worship songs. If it seems difficult to work out on paper, slow it down, try clapping out the rhythm and then get your strumming hand moving at a 16th note pace (i.e. two downs and two ups per beat).
I’ve listed this in a box format that shows the song over a single bar in a 16th note format. So the key is to count 1 E & A, 2 E & A, 3 E & A, 4 E & A over the song and crucially KEEP YOUR HAND MOVING at all times. Naturally your hand should strum down on the numbers or beats (1234), the &’s and then the up beats should always link to the E’s and A’s. If you find this difficult to work through on paper then I’d recommend either our Song Learner series DVDs or Intermediate Acoustic DVDs as its much easier to see it on video than in an article.
Caveats: