This pattern purposely misses out the down strum on beat 3, which gives it a pushed feel. Its similar to Oasis’s Wonderwall and this kind pattern works well for giving a slower song an ‘up’ feel. Its taken from the Third Day album, Live in Philadelphia.
We have God of Wonders as one of our Worship Backing Band DVD tracks. You can remove the guitar from the mix and play along with the pro band (the words and chords are all on screen).
I’ve listed these in kind of 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 again 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. God of Wonders is one of the songs we teach on the Beginners Worship Guitar DVDs.
Caveats:
- I’ve tried to pick the patterns from either the original album version or a fairly stock version of each song but of course, there are many versions of each song, and even within each version there will be some room to change up the strumming pattern and still fit the groove.
- Do realise that while each strumming pattern will work for the song on its own, if your drummer, or indeed your band is playing a different groove (consciously or unconsciously!) then it may not entirely fit. The key is to make sure the main accents in the rhythm of the melody are reflected in the strumming pattern.
The songs we have chosen to create strumming patterns for are taken from some of the top listed CCLI songs such in churches in both the UK and North America. If you want any more do make suggestions, but please don’t make them too obscure (ideally send a youtube link to the song in question). We’ll be uploading a new strumming pattern every couple of days.