Unit 1: The Cory Strum

Lesson 1: 16th's

Our first goal, which we'll develop with each lesson, is to develop your right-hand technique. When it comes to Cory Wong, it's quite different from your normal funk playing. Yes, we are doing 16th notes, and yes, we are doing a lot of muted notes, BUT, our dynamic range tends to stay firmly on 10! It's hard-hitting, it's aggressive, and it's very compressed. When you combine all three you get a very unique funk tone. This lesson focuses on bar 1 with this strumming pattern:

So, we're fretting an E9 chord here, muting the low and high E string. We're only playing the first note of the whole bar, which means we need to squeeze the chord on beat number 1. For the rest of the bar, we are muting all the strings whilst continuing that heavy 16th note strum with the loose wrist. Be sure to practice this with a drumbeat or metronome before the next lesson.

Lesson 2: "1 E and A"

Let's now level up and bring in another hit to our bar of strumming. This time we'll be adding the "a" in the first bar. This is where it becomes so important to be able to count in 16th notes. We'll be using the same chord and now squeezing it on the "1" and "a" of the first 4 16th notes. Once again, use a metronome or drum loops to practice this whilst counting before starting to speed up. This lesson focuses on bar 2 with this strumming pattern:

Lesson 3: "1 E and A"

As we delve into more beats within the 16th note strumming patterns, we will now add the "e" to our already established "1 e and a". It's important to get a feel for the different effect each beat placement has on the groove. It's super cool listening to how big a difference even a simple rhythmical change (like adding the "e" can have). Check out the rhythm pattern and tab here to get it nice and clear in your head. This lesson focuses on bar 3 with this strumming pattern:

Lesson 4: Moving Chord

For the final bar of this piece, we'll be developing the rhythm a little more. We now add in a lot more beats, as well as move the chord around the fretboard a lot more. First up, the chord movement is simply moving the 9th chord down two frets to D, then chromatically back up to E. Check out the chord boxes if you want to make double sure you are fretting these chords properly before tackling the bar! This lesson focuses on bar 4 with this strumming pattern:

Lesson 5: Whole Track

Time to get the whole thing together! When the whole track is played is one, it is an amazing exercise that will have your 16th note, Wong style strumming, up to scratch in no time. Try to ensure that the muted notes are absolutely dead, and the chords are as crisp as you can get them. Go easy on the speed as well. Your metronome and drum loops are your best friend. 50% of your energy will go on your playing, and 50% direct to the ears, listening to that beat and syncing up with it! Have fun, get this exercise into your daily practice, and we'll see you in the next unit!