Strum

In music, strumming is way of playing a stringed instrument such as a guitar. A strum or stroke is a sweeping action where a fingernail or plectrum brushes past several strings in order to set them all into motion and thereby play a chord. Strums are executed by the dominant hand, right for a right-handed musician and left for a left handed one, while the other hand holds down notes on the fretboard. Strums are contrasted with plucking, as means of activating strings into audible vibration, because in plucking, only one string is activated by a surface at a time. A hand-held pick or plectrum can only be used to pluck one string at a time, but multiple strings can be strummed by one. Plucking multiple strings simultaneously requires a fingerstyle or fingerpick technique.