If you want one strumming pattern that works for more songs than any other, this is it. Colin Daniel walks you through the world’s most popular strum – a pattern you’ll recognize from Brown Eyed Girl, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Let It Be, and dozens of other hits.
The Pattern: Count It Out
This pattern lives in 4/4 time – four beats per bar. Here’s how it breaks down:
- Beat 1: Down (quarter note)
- Beat 2-and-3-and-4-and: Down-Up-Down-Up-Down-Up (eighth notes)
So you’re playing: Down, Down-Up-Down-Up-Down-Up. The first beat gets a single downstroke, then the remaining beats are all eighth notes with alternating down and up strums.
The key insight: your downstroke is always the strong strum, your upstroke is always the weak strum. This creates the natural pulse that makes the pattern feel musical.
The Bonus Variation
Here’s a trick that buys you time if you’re slow on chord changes: add a quarter note on beat 4 as well. The count becomes: 1, 2-and-3-and, 4.
That pause before beat 4 gives you a split second to set up your next chord. Both versions of this strum work great together – you can mix them throughout a song.
Songs That Use This Pattern
Once you have this pattern down, you can play along with:
- Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
- Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door – Bob Dylan
- Last Kiss – Pearl Jam
- Let It Be – The Beatles
- Me and Bobby McGee – Janis Joplin
- Simple Man – Lynyrd Skynyrd
- Love Me Do – The Beatles
- With or Without You – U2
Each song uses a different tempo, so practice the pattern slow first, then speed up or slow down to match the recording.