The first guitar strum: four times down

Take the C grip and count out loud: “one, two, three, four”. On every number, strum the strings down, from the fifth to the first, in one movement. Do not strike the sixth, the thickest string, in C. Then from “one” again, with no gap between bars.

Those four even numbers are one bar. Here a bar has four beats, which is 4/4 time. If you want to sing straight away, open Mary Had a Little Lamb and hold C through the first phrase. Do not copy the song’s strum yet.

A dot is a return, not a rest

On the lane at the top, the arrows are sounds. The dots show when the hand comes back up. That return is silent, but it cannot disappear: without it there is no next downstroke.

Do not push the pick deep between the strings. After the downstroke the hand goes up at once and is ready for the next number. The next lesson will add sound to some of those returns. Today all of them miss the strings.

If four lands too early, slow down. You do not need to play louder. Listen for whether the next “one” comes back in the same place.

Change to G without extra time

In Mary Had a Little Lamb you also need G. Play one bar of C and one bar of G. After the fourth stroke the left hand changes grip, and the right hand makes its ordinary, silent return. Do not add a pause between four and the next “one”.

If G is not ready, release C a little earlier and form the fingers while the right hand travels up. A shorter last sound gets in the way less than a stopped bar.

If you want, play this in a song

The same movement is enough to play Mary Had a Little Lamb and London Bridge Is Falling Down: both songs stand on C, G and 4/4 time. The catalogue shows its own strum, but on this try you can leave the four downstrokes. If one stroke sounds weaker, the next one still lands on its number.