Sweet Home Alabama - Rhythm Pattern and Key

[Warrenaines]

Hey folks, couple questions about another 'easy' one.

I've been playing on and off for years and have decided I need to go back and nail some basic rhythm patterns and songs.

I've got the basic picking pattern down for this song and am working on a proper strumming pattern.

My teacher showed this song to me in 4/4 with a bar of D, a bar of Cadd9, and 2 bars of G, with the repeatong strumming pattern of


D--D--D-u-D-u

Online I've seen this song shown with a half bar of D, a half bar of C, and one full bar of G. In some ways it doesn't matter as long as the tempo is right, but the way shown by my teacher does result in more strums.

Any thoughts on the best backing strumming pattern for this song?

Also, he has the song in G and I see others say D, argument for both I guess?

[walternewton]

Originally Posted by Warrenaines

Also, he has the song in G and I see others say D, argument for both I guess?

Indeed - it's an infamous discussion topic, for example check out the 30+ page thread here.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Warrenaines

Hey folks, couple questions about another 'easy' one.

I've been playing on and off for years and have decided I need to go back and nail some basic rhythm patterns and songs.

I've got the basic picking pattern down for this song and am working on a proper strumming pattern.

My teacher showed this song to me in 4/4 with a bar of D, a bar of Cadd9, and 2 bars of G, with the repeatong strumming pattern of


D--D--D-u-D-u

Online I've seen this song shown with a half bar of D, a half bar of C, and one full bar of G. In some ways it doesn't matter as long as the tempo is right, but the way shown by my teacher does result in more strums.

Not if the count is adjusted accordingly.
IOW, if you follow the half-bar each of D and C (correct IMO), that puts the downstrokes on every 8th note, so you have 2 D's per beat, which is right.
The bpm then is around 100.

Your strum pattern should have accents (">") on 1st and 3rd "D"s of each pattern, to mark the beats.

Here's how the beats line up with that strumming pattern, and the rhythm of the opening lead riff.:

      |D               Cadd9          |G                              |
count:|1   .   2   .   3   .   4   .  |1   .   2   .   3   .   4   .  |
      |>       >       >       >      |>       >       >       >      |
      |D   D   D u D u D   D   D u D u D   D   D u D u D   D   D u D u| 
riff: |x   x   x x   x x   x   x x   x x   x   x       x x x x x x x  |

As an extra guide, here's how the lyrics fit:

      |D               Cadd9          |G                              |
count:|1   .   2   .   3   .   4   .  |1   .   2   .   3   .   4   .  |
      |>       >       >       >      |>       >       >       >      |
      |D   D   D u D u D   D   D u D u D   D   D u D u D   D   D u D u| 
               Big    wheels  keep on tur--nin'

Originally Posted by Warrenaines

Any thoughts on the best backing strumming pattern for this song?

Listen to the song.
Start by making sure you have a downstroke for every beat (every metronome click at 100 bpm.
You should find you have time for another downstroke between each of those, but you don't need to accent those - in fact your hand could simply move past the strings without touching. This "double downstroke" helps keep your timing solid.
Upstrokes can (in principle) be placed between any of your downstrokes, but usually sound best towards the end of a bar, or approaching a chord change.
Your teacher's suggestion is therefore a good generic pattern for a song like this (maybe a little busy), but feel free to vary it. Just make sure your arm move is consistent - down on every 8th, even if you don't always contact the strings.

(Normally downs are only on every quarter, but that's when tempos are faster than this. As tempos slow, giving you the chance to double up, it's usually good to do it. Again, watch the pros and look at what they do.)

Originally Posted by Warrenaines

Also, he has the song in G and I see others say D, argument for both I guess?

Indeed!
The issue is where you hear the keynote to be. Do you hear the sequence coming to rest on D or G? That's where all the debate begins: and many people simply can't see (or rather hear) the opposite view at all.
Is it a V-IV-I in G (major), or I-bVII-IV in D (mixolydian)? You decide!
(No matter what you might read there is no one correct answer - it all depends how you hear it.)
(It makes little difference to soloing, btw; the notes are all the same!)

[Warrenaines]

Wow, that's extremely helpful. That all makes sense. I will play around with it when I get home, but laying it out like that makes me think this pattern may have be a bit busy

[Warrenaines]

^ one clarification, so the first and third down strums of the D and the C chords are accented?

Thanks again, that's all really interesting

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Warrenaines

^ one clarification, so the first and third down strums of the D and the C chords are accented?

The basic principle is that the beats (1-2-3-4) are marked, all with downstrokes. (You might vary which beats you hit, and how hard you hit them, but you're always moving down on the count.)

With a double downstroke technique like this, it's important that the downs on the 8ths between the beats are under-emphasised (if actually played at all).
I like to characterise the in-between downs as a kind of bounce from the main downstroke on the beat.
IOW, your hand bounces up from the "D" on "1", and falls back down on the next 8th, before coming down hard again on "2" (and then bouncing again). But the bounces are small secondary downstrokes.
This means the upstrokes are (potentially) 16ths between the 8ths, giving you a lot of potential variety of strumming patterns.

Here's a chart of how the arm moves:

|1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . .| 
|D u d U D u d U D u d U D u d U|

Capital Ds show the main moves; the small u-d show the "bounce" effect; the big U shows the wider upstroke returning to play the next big D.
The important point is that the arm (and hand) is always moving in this way. The different strum patterns are produced by which strokes actually hit the strings. You'd never hit all 16 16ths! (Except maybe at a very dramatic point in the music.) But because your hand is always passing the strings, you could hit any of them you want.

The problem most people have with strum patterns (in my experience) is that they think they only need to move their hand (D or U) when they need to hit the strings. This leads to a jerky hand movement which doesn't work rhythmically at all. If you keep your hand moving - like a metronome or pendulum - your rhythm will stay solid.
You then decide which strokes will hit the strings - and how hard, to provide dynamic interest.
Generally in rock beats 2 and 4 are hit harder than 1 and 3, but that's really the guitar emulating the snare drum.

Here's a famous strum pattern in 16ths, using the double downstroke: watch Noel Gallagher's hand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRrqPvtAeX4
In this case you won't see much difference between the "D" on the beats and the "d" on the 8ths between, but the important point is his hand never stops moving. And yet you hear a rhythmic pattern, because of when and how he actually hits the strings.
(The bpm is around 90 here, a little slower than Sweet Home Alabama. His downstrokes are at 180.)