The Backbeat Hit

Add Some Groove To Your Guitar ... With The Backbeat Hit!

The secret is adding percussive hits to your strumming patterns.

If you're following my Beginner Guitar Course, you should be confident with your strumming! Now is the perfect time to crank things up a bit!

Adding in a percussive hit while strumming will spice things up. This technique mimics a snare drum hit and typically happens on beats 2 and 4.

In this lesson,  you'll learn how to add a backbeat hit even when you play guitar on your own! This works particularly well on an acoustic guitar. But - I've heard plenty of electric guitar players make it sound pretty groovy.

Ready to get your groove on? Let's get stuck in.

How To Play Percussive Strumming on Guitar

First - you've got to get the 'hit' down.

To do this, you need to practice and experiment until it feels natural. It'll feel awkward a first - but stick with it! It's part of the wonderful guitar learning journey. :)

Here are the two main steps to nail this guitar technique:

Step 1: Your arm will move similarly to how it would while strumming. Rather than strumming the strings with your pick, the palm of your hand will mute them - all six of them!

Step 2: Immediately when your palm mutes the strings, your pick comes down and hits the strings. The hit itself is both the pressure from the hand and the pick hitting the strings. The two together give you that 'smack' sound.

🚨 In the early stages of learning this technique, think of this as two separate movements rather than one. Before you try to put it into a strumming pattern - make sure you're confident doing one smooth movement with the palm mutes!

5 Minute Practice for Awesome Rhythm On Guitar

For your first 4 or 5 practices sessions - spend 5 minutes just going through the motion. The goal is to find that point where the edge of your hand mutes all the strings. Don't be in a hurry! No need to rush through this technique. It's more important to make sure you get it right!

💡 Enter this as a practice element using My Practice Assistant. You'll be able to track your progress and see how this technique improves each session. Remember - practice makes permanent, so practice perfectly. You don't want to keep practicing the mistake over and over again.

I recommend starting with really simple patterns. Try it out on your guitar with the two easy patterns below. :)

Pattern 1

The easiest way to practice this is by strumming beats 1 and 3 and doing a percussive hit on beats 2 and 4. With this pattern, you're practicing switching between strums and hits. - which will be useful for many songs.

If you want to add more strums in on those downbeats later on - go for it! Experimenting leads to new guitar discoveries. :)

Pattern 2

I'm sure you've heard this super common pattern before! It's featured in the popular song Proud Mary by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Personally - I think it's one of the best sounding patterns.

You'll play even eighth notes with the percussive hit on beats 2 and 4. That means a down-up strum for beat 1, a hit on beat 2, and an up strum on the "and" of beat 2. The pattern repeats for beats 3 and 4.

Unlike Pattern 1, which has you transitioning from a hit to a down strum, you're going UP this time. It may feel strange at first - it takes a bit of practice and getting used to!

How To Get That Groove On Guitar

Is your technique feeling good, but your music missing some groove?

It's essential that these backbeats FEEL good when you play these patterns! Remember, you're playing music - you want people to dance! There's no real way for me to explain to you how to get into the groove (maybe Madonna can help, though? haha).

You've got to go for it and explore with different patterns. Relax into them, and pay attention to how it feels to play them. You should feel loose and easy, but don't fret if this doesn't happen right away. Guitar skills develop with time and repetition! :)

Next lesson - we're taking a look at different goals when you're developing your song repertoire!