Syncopated Funk Strumming – Mini Lesson: 006

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Learn to play a syncopated strum pattern in this funk-inspired ukulele lesson. To explain syncopation, let’s take a look at two bars which are played with quarter and eighth note strums.

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Listen to these 2 bars being played alongside a metronome in 4/4.

In bar 1, you strum a C chord on beats 1, 2, 3, 4. Pretty simple! This measure is not syncopated.

But in measure 2, you strum the C chord on the &’s of each beat. This measure is syncopated!

Syncopation means that we are accenting the weak beats (the &’s). This can be tricky because accenting weak beats doesn’t come as natural as accenting strong beats (1, 2, 3, 4).

Things become more difficult when we introduce 16th notes into the mix:

Instead of one weak beat, we have two: e and a.

If you were to count and clap on the weak beats, it’s not too hard because the hits are uniform (i.e. every other beat). But what happens when the hits occur randomly throughout the measure? That’s what we’ll be tackling in this strum pattern.

Part 1 – Performance & Free Lesson

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