Hi, Andy Eastwood here welcoming 
you to the Octopus Ukulele Academy! [Andy shows off…] There's all sorts of fancy strumming you can do 
on the ukulele but let's not try to run before we   can walk. None of that stuff is going to happen 
until after you've mastered a solid reliable   basic strumming technique and that's what 
we're going to talk about in this video.   Strumming the ukulele, it's a huge topic 
that we could talk about for many hours but   I don't want to get bogged down by too many 
details just at this stage, I want to give   you the most important points and help you to 
avoid some of the most common mistakes that I see   people making. Now I cannot over emphasise how 
important it is to develop a correct strumming   technique because the average ukulele player is 
going to make this movement millions of times   and I'm not exaggerating you can do the maths 
if you like think how many beats there are in a   song how many songs you might play in a week how 
many years you might go on playing the uke for   and you can see we're talking not thousands but 
millions so you owe it to yourself and your arm   muscles to get this right.

Okay, so here are six 
important aspects to think about when you strum. What's going on when we strum? It looks like 
a wrist movement doesn't it. Actually that's   a bit of an illusion and it gets people into a 
lot of trouble. Take a look at your wrist joint,   it's not so great at moving side to side. It 
moves that way pretty well but side to side   not so good. The little tendons that move the 
wrist in that direction are only designed for   delicate positioning they're not intended to 
do any heavy work, so the minute you call up   on your wrist joint to create a strumming action 
you're really fighting your own physiology. If we   thought this was going to come from the wrist we'd 
better have a rethink. If we're going to make this   strumming movement millions of times it needs to 
be easy so relax your wrist, let it flop.

When   it's relaxed it rests at an angle like that, okay 
so that's how we'll strum. Now keep your wrists   completely relaxed and wobble your hand as if it's 
wet and you're trying to shake the water off. The   wrist is relaxed but these muscles are doing the 
work, you can feel them moving. Now those are the   biggest muscles in your arm they're designed 
to do heavy lifting and carrying and all we're   asking them to do is wobble the hand from side 
to side so there's no strain, it's effortless,   and that's what we want.

Another way I could 
describe this movement is like turning a doorknob,   it's a rotation of the forearm palm to the ceiling 
palm to the floor. Now if you rotate your forearm   with your wrist straight your strumming finger the 
'index' finger stays on one point but if you angle   your wrist that finger draws an arc and the more 
angled the wrist is the bigger the radius of the   arc so given that we want to hit four strings 
side by side a big radius is going to suit us.   So let that wrist be at its relaxed angle. So, it 
looks like a wrist movement but actually what good   players do is let the arm muscles do the work and 
keep the wrist relaxed. Now in addition to this   rotating movement there is also a little bit of 
downward and upward movement of the forearm from   the elbow joint but don't think too much about 
that for the time being just let your arm follow   the movement of your hand and that should happen 
naturally. Later on when we want to add a bit of   emphasis we can use this arm movement as well just 
to give the hand a bit of extra speed but for the   time being concentrate on getting that rotation 
of the forearm because that's the basic action.

So we've talked about the wrist now what 
about the hand? Well we're going to let   the index finger do the business. Later on when 
we're doing fancy rhythms and special effects   we let the other fingers get involved and the 
thumb but for standard basic strumming we use   the index finger. Now a big mistake that a lot 
of people make is they play with the fingers all   spread out and they wonder why it doesn't sound 
good. Well imagine an athlete running in a race,   they wouldn't run with their arms flailing around 
all over the place it's not controlled it's not   balanced it's not aerodynamic. Well it's a bit the 
same with strumming. If you tuck the other fingers   in the weight of the hand is more concentrated 
and the strumming becomes more controlled.   Just try wobbling your hand with the 
fingers spread and then do the same thing   with them closed and you'll immediately notice the 
difference. So for accurate rhythmic strumming you   want a closed hand position.

Gess what? When 
you relax your fingers they curl it's when   you tense the muscles that they extend so again 
everything we're doing here is designed to make   life easier! So have your fingers curled in now I 
would hesitate to describe this as a fist because   that suggests clenching and tension and those 
are just the things we're trying to avoid but   have the fingertips lightly touching the palm and 
then just open out this index finger a little bit   so that that fingertip protrudes so that that one 
can get to the strings while the others can't.   So the other three fingers are supporting 
the index finger on this side and the thumb,   lightly touching it, is supporting 
it on the other side by supporting   I mean that when it hits the strings 
it's less liable to wobble around.

So where do we strum? Well generally 
speaking we want to play the strings   fairly near the middle. That's where we get 
a full sweet sound and it's also the point   where the strings are softest on the fingers 
so that's another good reason to play there.   If you experiment a little bit you'll 
find that the nearer you get to the bridge   the harsher the sound is and the more 
resistance there is in the strings so   for best results aim for round about the point 
where the neck meets the body of the uke. The size of the strum is very important and 
yet a lot of people forget to think about it.   In order for your strumming to sound neat 
and rhythmic you have to obviously play   on the beat but actually when you think about 
it what we're doing is hitting the four strings   one after the other we can't physically 
strike all four at the same exact time.   So all we have to do is get the hand moving 
so quickly that the four strings sound like   one chord.

Now to get the required speed of course 
you have to take a bit of a swing at the strings   and I like to compare this to a golfer. Now, I 
don't play golf myself but we've all seen what   happens. Think of a golfer driving off from 
the tee and first of all of course there's   the backswing and then the club starts behind the 
head travels through 180 degrees then there's the   split second where you're in contact with the ball 
then the follow through carries on all the way up   here and you finish behind the head again the 
other side. Now it's not all about that precise   moment where you're in contact with the ball. 
In fact, by the time you get to the ball you've   already determined what's going to happen to it. 
Well it's the same with a strum. I see a lot of   people making too small a movement and struggling 
to make it sound good.

They think the strum is all   about the area where the strings are they start 
about here and finish here and all you get is   that spread effect where you hear the four strings 
one after the other. Imagine that golfer trying to   drive the ball 100 yards down the fairway but only 
starting to swing about this far from the ball.   It would take a lot of effort from those arms 
to get to the required speed well of course it's   impossible. Try and start the strum about here 
in line with the edge of the body of the uke and   end around about here again near the edge 
of the uke then your hand has time to   accelerate before getting to the strings and slow 
down after hitting the strings. Because you've   given yourself that space you don't have to force 
it. So a bigger movement is actually less effort. When you hit the strings on the way down use the 
nail of that index finger. Not the very tip of the   nail but the big flat surface of it.

Many people 
make the mistake of trying to hit the strings too   square on now of course the natural result of 
that would be for the finger to bounce back again   off the string and so people then fall into the 
trap of trying to force the finger through which   leads to a very heavy impact, a harsh sound, and a 
sore finger: three things we really want to avoid!   The smart thing to do is to angle the hand 
so that when that finger meets the G string,   that's the first string that it hits on the 
way down, the nail is it's a very shallow   flat angle so that it can glide or skim across 
the strings without too much resistance.

That way, we keep the speed up and the effort 
to a minimum. So far we've talked more about the   downstrokes than the upstrokes and that's because 
they're kind of more important in a way. For most   people the easiest way to learn is just to think 
about strumming down on every beat. For example,   four beats in a bar. one two three four one two 
three four If you focus on doing that your hand   automatically comes up again in between the 
down strokes to get ready for the next beat.   Now when you feel comfortable 
playing down on every beat,   gently introduce the up strokes.

Instead 
of missing the strings on the way up   let the fleshy part of your index 
finger gently brush the strings.   Of course as we have this curved finger position 
what's going to happen is when the finger hits   the strings on the way up the strings are going to 
bend it back a little taking the power out of the   impact but that's fine don't fight it we actually 
want the upstrokes to be softer than the downs   because we played down on the beat and up off 
the beat. So by playing the downward strum   strong and the ups gentle we give the music a 
little rhythmic light and shade. Often people   tense the finger and then it catches the 
strings on the way up. Just relax… And   my advice when learning to strum is let the 
upward strokes be as gentle as you possibly can.   Think of them as a fill-in between the more 
important beats don't worry we'll still hear them.   So there's a lot to think about in a simple 
strum isn't there? But the number one tip   is keep it loose and relaxed, don't fight the 
uke it's your friend…

Enjoy it! Bye for now..