Guitar Lab: Precision Strumming

Brad is a great teacher

My rhythm playing had gotten sloppy and I felt the need to go back to basics and tighten everything up. This course is just what I needed. Brad offers a very practical and concise plan for getting back in the groove. Just what I needed.

Guitar lab Precision strumning.

This course by Brad Carlton is for guitarists wishing to improve technique. Everyone will find something of benefit. If your groove when playing is loose and sloppy then applying Brads exercises will improve your style. Lots of details on using picks here and how to different sounds from picks. If you like going into detail of technique you will like this course.

Strum with Precision

Brad Carlton is obviously a qualified educator. You can tell by the way he organizes his courses and Precision Strumming falls in line with a proper lesson plan. I want to improve my rhythm guitar playing so I got this course. Brad makes the learner aware of the beat and count when playing rhythm guitar. He also brings awareness to subtle nuances like rest and free strokes. He does the entire course on acoustic guitar so all are accommodated. Buy it!

Rut breaker, by chance

Anything but five stars would be impertinent, since I bought this course by chance in a five dollar sale and it is much worth than that. Brad Carlton explains things very systematically and guides you through every rhythmic, technical and string option to develop a confident right hand. He always encourages you to trust on your own acoustic and tactile judgements and pays great attention to rhythmic accuracy. What distinguishes this course from most of the Truefire catalogue is that you propably end up watching this with a pen and paper in your hands instead of a guitar, in order to design your own practice schedule according to your personal needs or stylistic interests. By the way, even though this is not a style course, you’ll get some useful insights into Bluegrass/Carter-style or Funk. Although Brad rambles around a bit more than in his other courses, for me, who never methodically learned how to flat pick and strum, this has been just the rut breaker, I didn’t even know I was looking for.

Bang the beat

There are not a lot of TF courses dedicated solely to the topic of acoustic percussive playing. Yes, there are courses that include those kind of ideas in individual lessons but this is one of the few that tries to paint a broad stroke on the topic by providing you with a lot of different examples. A lot of the focus is actually how to sort of choke and attack the strings more than banging on the body of the guitar (though that's in there too.) If you play rhythm acoustic, take an hour and go through these lessons.