Strumming vs. Picking

Now that I've gone over the ways to place your fingers plus tips and tricks in making sure that the strings you pick sound nice and strong, the next step would be to learn how to "pick" or "strum" the chord you're playing. 

According to David Brewster, "picking" is when you want to play an individual string at a time. Another way to think of it is to strike the string (7). 

Typically people pick strings with a tool called a pick, but I personally don't use them! Although, if you have one ready at hand, go ahead and use it to start off and then you can make a decision whether you would like to use it or not!
Strumming is another technique that is used when playing the guitar. The basic method of strumming is as explained by Brewster, 

"Strum several of them [chords] together. To start, we'll be using a down-ward motion called the downstroke. Strum several strings at once with gentle and even downstrokes... Then, reverse your picking direction to produce an upstroke, or upward striking motion" (7). 

Although they seem to be both very simple, picking and strumming are crucial in creating the sound that you hear when playing a guitar. It could be compared to how vocalization is to a language; without it, you wouldn't be able to communicate; without strumming, you wouldn't be able to hear the chord! 

I applied these methods to my previous learning of the importance of finger placement by holding down a string properly and finally picking the string to hear the sound it creates! In this video, i'm picking each individual string in the chord and at the end strumming all of them together to get the final product. I can't wait to learn more chords so I can start maybe applying them to songs!

Since strumming and picking seem to be very unanimous techniques, the real question here is: do you prefer to use a pick or not and why?

     Brewster, David M. Teach Yourself to Play Guitar. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 2004. Print.