How to read guitar strumming arrows

Read the top lane from left to right: down, empty, down, up, empty, up, down, up. The hand keeps going down and up in turn. The signs only say which movements should touch the strings.

Eight even places

Count “one and two and three and four and”. A number is a movement down, each “and” is a return up. Those eight places have equal width, so “and” is not a quick extra after the number, but the midpoint of the path to the next downstroke.

place	1	and	2	and	3	and	4	and
movement	↓	↑	↓	↑	↓	↑	↓	↑

Move an empty hand over the strings in that order, without playing. On the number it goes down, on “and” it comes back. If “and” sticks to the previous number, slow down and say all eight syllables with the movement.

Three signs: a stroke or a miss

sign	read	do
↓ D	down	touch the strings on the way down
↑ U	up	touch the strings on the way back
·	empty	make the movement, but miss the strings

The letters D and U are short for down and up. The arrows show the same direction without a translation. A dot does not mean “stop”. It means: make the movement over the strings, so the hand is in the right place for the next arrow.

An upstroke often catches mainly the thinner strings. It does not have to sound the same as a downstroke.

A pattern is made by taking strokes away

Start from the full sequence: each of the eight movements makes a sound. Then on the first “and” and on the number three, take the pick over the strings. What remains is D-DU-UDU, exactly the layout at the top.

↓↑↓↑↓↑↓↑

↓·↓↑·↑↓↑

If you strike the strings on the first “and”, you add a sound, but you stay in time. If you stop the hand there, the next downstroke usually comes in late. An empty slot checks that the movement continues, not that you can stand still.

Where you come in early or late

Open Rhythm and tap a few bars with a finger. The result shows a specific place, not a score for the whole try. If you miss the same slot a few times, go back to counting and check which word you say on that movement.

Then you can take the same pattern to the guitar in Learn a strum. The app calls this pattern Harpagan (scout strum). Do not speed up just because you already know the order of the arrows.