No matter what pattern you are strumming, keep your down and up motion consistent. One practical thing you can do is to set an up “ceiling” and a down “floor.”
On the way up, make sure your wrist doesn’t go higher than your “ceiling” which could be any visual marker you choose. (Maybe the top curve of the body of your guitar, etc).
On the way down, make sure your wrist doesn’t go lower than your “floor” which could be maybe the lower curve of the body of your guitar.
This will at the very least give you a range of motion that you shouldn’t exceed when strumming, which will then improve your consistency.
Much Respect,
The Musician’s Toolbox
Strumming is essentially just down and up, down and up. Those are the only two directions you can go! Creating strum patterns is simply a matter of keeping a consistent downward and upward motion, and then purposefully missing a down or an up strum.
In music notation, you would see this as a rest or a tie, but you don’t have to know all that just yet, just try this little exercise:
Strum down and up on your guitar strings as if to a ticking clock. Tick (down) Tock (up).
