You absolutely need to understand the strumming concept. Bad strumming + Eddie Vedder voice = no music career, ever, it's that simple. I'll attempt to re-explain as simply as I can.dlsevern said:
This is a downstrum. V
This is an upstrum. A
This is a ghost strum. -
Now, let's watch a video.
At 0:39 the guitarist is doing this: V - V - V - V -
(notice how after every downstroke there's a ghost upstroke where he brings his hand up in preparation for the next downstroke - this is important)
At 0:51 he changes to this: V A V A V A V A
At 2:41 he's doing this: V A V A - A V A
In between everything he explains exactly what a ghost strum is so watch all that stuff too.
Now the strumming pattern in your song starts off being performed like this:
V - V A - A V A
This pattern is repeated six times, and then at the end the guitarist sounds like he's doing all downs: V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V (that's 16 downstrokes).
However, when you do two downstrokes in a row, you have to move your hand up in order to get to the next down, so to do all downstrokes at the same speed as alternating down/upstrokes, you need to move your hand twice as fast. So what he's really doing at that point is this: V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-
This change of speed is throwing him out of time a little.
To rectify this, your guitarist can move his hand twice as fast all the time. Later on he slips into something which sounds a little bit like that, when he starts adding little baby strums into the main pattern, and the correct way to do it would be like this:
V---V-V---V-V-VA
...or something like it (he changes the pattern a little sometimes). However because the arm motion isn't consistent, it's coming out sounding more like this:
V - V A - V-V-VA
I've spaced it to show the arm speeding up and slowing down, which I assume is happening, because it certainly sounds like it.
Bad rhythms guitarists can't regulate their hand movement and it's this hand movement that will throw them out of time. Good rhythm guitarists, their right hand is like a fucking machine, it it literally what's keeping them in time.
Watch from 0:28 and pay attention to the picking hand only (pay no attention to what he's talking about, it has no relevance to what I'm trying to communicate, or to your music). The guy is doing some very off-beat syncopated stuff, yet no matter what happens, or how complicated the part gets, his right hand moves at one constant speed - always. He just moves it at the maximum speed that he knows he's going to need for the entire part. If he just sped up for the fast bits he'd throw his whole shit out and it wouldn't be funky anymore, he'd lose the feel completely of what he's trying to do.
Not all rhythm guitar works like this - in heavy metal they do something different for example - but most of it does, and the style you're doing must be done this way. Watch this:
I chose Justin because he's the Escapist's favourite singer (just going by the amount of threads that mention him it's clear we all have a Justin obsession), now look at that guy's strumming hand, it's constant. The kid innately understands rhythm. He's not thinking or looking at his hand, he's focusing on singing, the hand is just there to make the guitar make a noise and to keep him in time. That's a textbook example of how to do it right.
By now you should know exactly what I'm talking about. If not, and your goal is to be successful with your music, you have two choices - get a music teacher who can explain this shit better than I can over the Internet, or give up. I'm half-tempted to do a video just to show you this concept more clearly than text and other people's Youtubes can but I value my anonymity too much so too bad, and I normally get paid to teach anyway, so get a teacher if you feel you need one. Good luck. (I guess this post is really directed at your bro, but every musician who plays an instrument with a pick can use this information.)
