I had a one-on-one lesson recently with a student who wanted to play “Blues Umbrella” by John Prine but the strumming pattern sounded, well, off.

He asked, “Why does every song I strum sound the same?”

To play “Blue Umbrella”, he grabbed the strum he knew best, the calypso strum aka the island strum.

The chords were right. You could tell what song it was. It didn’t sound bad. But it felt a little off.

And here’s the bigger problem. If you play every song with the island strum, every song starts to sound the same.

You don’t need a secret pattern

This happens to a lot of ukulele players. You practice a pattern until it feels good. Then you try it in a song, and it just doesn’t fit.

The beginner instinct is to go hunting for a new pattern. A better one. A more “magical” one. As if the right pattern is the only thing standing between you and the song.

What surprised my student was this. The pattern for “Blue Umbrella” is way easier than you’d think. What makes it sound good is something else entirely.

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