Essential Right Hand Strumming Exercises – Alternate Picking

The right hand is extremely important in order to play authentic Oud. Here is one basic strumming exercise that you can use to hone your skills. Alternate picking on parallel strings!

Check out the video to learn how to do it!

Alternate Picking on Two Adjacent Strings – Essential Right Hand Technique

Difficulty: Easy to Moderate

What?

Alternate picking is essentially down stroke, up stroke, repeatedly. The down stroke is on a string and the up stroke is on a higher string.

Why? 

This exercise will not only develop your technique but will also help you play real, authentic passages. You will hear a real example using this technique in the video.

How? 

Try playing a down stroke on the open D string and then an up stroke on open G string, and repeat this over and over.

Level Up

Now try down stroke on the open D string and an up stroke on the open C string. So you skip over the G string.

Level Up 

Next, add some fingering to the string which an up stroke falls on. You can play some simple melodies this way.

Key to Success:

In order to cleanly play the up stroke right after the down stroke, the down stroke has to “bounce” away from off the string, and smoothly transition to the up stroke.

What’s Next?

More strumming patterns in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more free Oud lessons, and don’t forget to sign up below. If there is something you are having trouble with on the Oud, let us know in the comments below!