{"id":5553,"date":"2011-08-01T13:11:09","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T13:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/?p=5553"},"modified":"2021-03-25T13:21:35","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T13:21:35","slug":"ask-the-expert-why-so-many-16th-note-picking-patterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-why-so-many-16th-note-picking-patterns\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask the expert &#8211; why so many 16th note picking patterns?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kathleen Trissel emails:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Does the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/store\/uk\/christian-guitar\/existing-player\/intermediate\/intermediate-acoustic-guitar.html\">Intermediate Acoustic Guitar Box<\/a> set utilize 8th note strumming patterns, and not all 16th note patterns? It seems all the patterns I&#8217;ve seen are 16th note patterns.\u00a0I have a default strumming pattern, d d u u d u, that I always\u00a0fall into. Also, do you cover combining finger picking and strumming? &#8220;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Andy replies:<\/p>\n<p>Yes, the majority of the strumming patterns in the intermediate guitar are\u00a0based around 16th note patterns. This is because the majority of popular\u00a0worship songs tend to use 16th note patterns.<\/p>\n<p>8th note patterns are generally used for really slow, gentle songs (such as\u00a0Jesus, Friend Forever) or fast\u00a0songs above 130 bpm where it would be physically quite difficult to keep a\u00a016th note pattern going for that long. Most popular worship songs right now\u00a0fall into the mid tempo and mid dynamic category but you do need to be aware\u00a0of 8th note patterns as they do come up from time to time and are useful if\u00a0your church plays songs at breakneck speed.<\/p>\n<p>That said, if you want to get away from your default pattern, learning the\u00a035 example patterns we show will certainly help you to do that.<\/p>\n<p>On the other question I don&#8217;t do anything that combines finger picking and\u00a0strumming in the same song but there&#8217;s no reason why you can&#8217;t combine one of\u00a0the 18 finger picking patterns on the DVD with one of the strumming patterns\u00a0into a song as it progresses dynamically, as long as the groove is the same\u00a0of course.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Other posts you may like:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; 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background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/practical-ideas-on-chord-charts-and-notation-guest-post\/\">Practical ideas on chord charts and notation<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; border: 0px initial initial; margin: 0px 0px 18px 0px;\"><a style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: underline; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/travis-picking-demonstration\/\">Travis picking demonstration<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; border: 0px initial initial; margin: 0px 0px 18px 0px;\"><a style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-choosing-strumming-patterns\/\">Ask the Expert \u2013 Choosing strumming patterns<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; border: 0px initial initial; margin: 0px 0px 18px 0px;\"><a style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/3-intermediate-guitar-dvd-sets-which-is-right-for-me\/\">What&#8217;s the difference between the three Intermediate Guitar courses?<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; border: 0px initial initial; margin: 0px 0px 18px 0px;\"><a style=\"outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: underline; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/free-lesson-from-our-new-intermediate-acoustic-worship-guitar-dvd\/\">Free lesson from our new Intermediate Acoustic Worship Guitar DVD<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kathleen Trissel emails: &#8220;Does the Intermediate Acoustic Guitar Box set utilize 8th note strumming patterns, and not all 16th note patterns? It seems all the patterns I&#8217;ve seen are 16th note patterns.\u00a0I have a default strumming pattern, d d u u d u, that I always\u00a0fall into. Also, do you cover combining finger picking and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ask the expert - why so many 16th note picking patterns?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Most worship songs are played with 16th note patterns because 8th notes are either really gentle or fast patterns above 120 bpm &amp; songs tend to be mid tempo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-why-so-many-16th-note-picking-patterns\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ask the expert - 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