Ask the Expert – Strumming pattern and strumming advice for Open the Eyes of My Heart

We had this request from Tomy in Florida

“I am a beginning guitarist and I can’t find the beat for Open The Eyes of My Heart. I can find plenty of tabs, but no strumming pattern.Can anyone be of any help?”

You need to play a 16th note strumming pattern. I.e. for every beat of the bar your strumming hand will move down and up twice so four movements in total. So for the four beats of the bar there will be 16 possible down and up strums you can use. Like this:

D= down

U= up

1     E     &      a      2      E      &      a      3      E      &      a      4      E      &      a

D     U     D      U      D     U      D     U     D      U      D      U     D     U      D      U

A strumming pattern will be comprised of hitting and missing some of those possible down and up strums. The key thing is to keep your hand moving at all times so that down strums happen on the numbers (1,2,3,4,) and ‘&’s. The ‘E’s and ‘a’s therefore will always be up strums. Open the eyes of my heart can use a variety of common strumming patterns. However if you are playing with a drummer make sure the pattern seems to fit with their kick and snare patterns. So try one these and see how you get on.

1    E     &     a      2    E   &    a   3     E    &    a     4      E     &     a

D                           D                U   D    U    D          D

1    E     &     a      2    E   &    a   3     E    &    a     4      E     &     a

D                    U                 D               U    D           D      U    D

1    E     &     a      2    E   &    a   3     E    &    a     4      E     &     a

D                   U      D        D                U    D          D      U     D     U

The first is very simple and the second and third patterns are very similar to what Paul Baloche plays on the original album version.

If you need more help to get to grips with these patterns try our Beginners Guitar DVD Course or if you have basic chords under your belt our Song Learner Series where each DVD unpacks a variety of worship songs in detail and shows you all the cheat and substitute chords as well as strumming and picking patterns to play the song as originally written.

I hope that helps