The Hummingbird Strum gets it’s name from the motions the hummingbird makes whenever it is in mid-flight. This is a highly complex strumming technique requiring a strongly re-enforced wrist control and agility. Be certain to start off slowly and then as you progress speed it up.
We are now going to learn how to do a Humminbird strum, this is a strum used by having your hand extended and is played only by moving the index finger up and down and slowly begin to accelerate the motion of the hand. This then has the effect that it will sound perfectly within the rhythm of Joropo, it will have a high paced type of an effect on the piece. It will appear as if the hand is moving very fast, but in reality it is only the finger moving along with the wrist and gives the illusion of us playing faster.
The strum is as follows with the chords G Minor, C Minor u0026amp; D7:
G Minor
C Minor
D7
This involves extending the hand and we also isolate our index finger which will be doing all of the work. Move the index finger up and down and make sure that it also moves in of itself in an up, down motion and at the same time make use of your wrist to move your hand up and down in order to gain speed.
If we were to do this at a normal velocity, it would be….1,2,3 1,2,3….this maintains the bars of the rhythm and we can notice the changes of the chords. If we then start to do this a bit faster then we would be doing a 4 count within each bar….1,2,3,4….1,2,3,4
By mixing this with the normal rhythm of joropo, you will be able to play it either through 1,2,3 or 1,2,3,4 after having accelerated the movement. Take a look.
Make use of previously learned progressions and try to apply this strumming technique to them.
