Up Stroke With A Snare Drum String Slap

We use upstrokes with our thumb to play notes after snare slaps on the strings.

Exercise 1

For this exercise the chords are open Em and G major.

For the first bar:

• Hold an E minor chord

• Fingerpick the E, D, G and B strings (check out fingerpicking tips below for which fingers are best to use)

• As demonstrated in the lesson video, the rhythm of the fingerpicking is counted, '1-and-2-and'.

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The crucial percussive element here are:

• A snare string slap - try to place thumb below the string you want to play

• Then, with an upstroke motion using the thumb, pluck the Low E

• And with the thumb, downstroke again on the Low E

This sequence of motions is the same for the G major chord. However the final beat in Bar 4, rather than downstroke the G note (3rd fret) we slide to the A note (5th fret) to finish off the phrase.

Finger picking tips

• Use your thumb to play the Low E, A and D strings

• First finger on the G

• Second finger for the B

Try to open up the finger picking movement to be as fluid as possible, to assist the percussive elements of our playing.