Up or Down

Hootsmon

Which is more important to you.....the up or down stroke?

viz

Are we talking guitar?

sev112

Downstrum is about timing
Up strum  is about groove 

tabano

depending on the accents really,

tanihhiavlt

as a southpaw - I spent several years playing my Dad's right handed guitars the wrong way up - as he gigged them and, for a while, that was the sole income for the household. 

As a result my up-stroke in chords needed to be stronger and clearer to emulate other musicians (an important part of learning)

That means decades later, I still sometimes start on the upstroke (okay for Reggae and Bossanova) but not so good for everything else.

I had a lesson with Phil Robson once a long time ago and he practised playing tunes with nothing but down strokes.. 

I don't know if either is more important. or if one direction is weighted for one thing or the other ... my left hand (picking hand) is still a complete mystery to me

Mattharrier

If I can be a facetious arse for a moment, I am finding that it's actually the strums I don't make that I'm focusing on - if you take down-down-down-down and down-up-down-up-down-up-down-up as the default patterns, it's the beats I don't play that make my playing (such as it is) sound better and more musical.

As a beginner, I'd say that down strums are the most important in general though.

octatonic

Depends on the player.
People should work on their weaknesses, if your downstrokes are weak then work on them... I am sure you can fill in the rest.

viz

octatonic said:

I am sure you can fill in the rest.

With an upstroke. 

slacker

Imho depends on the music.

Ramones-down
Reggae-up
Nile Rodgers-down up very fast and mute for accents

And so on.

I don't actually think about it as technique just how to play the song.

Lewy

Downstroke, because I use the bluegrass/flat picking philosophy of downstroke on the downbeat, upstroke on the offbeat, so for me downstroke is always the beat (or rather the beat is always a downstroke)

Nitefly

I'm sure I read once that John Lennon only played downstrokes in his rhythm parts - anyone able to verify/disprove?

Mellish

@Nitefly I think in the Get Back rooftop performance there's a side-on view of his strumming hand that shows him doing down up. It may be a different performance I'm thinking of but I've seen it somewhere  

CarpeDiem

They’re both important, and has already been said it depends on the song. Accenting of either upstroke or downstroke is needed for certain genres (eg some metal styles or reggae), or a particular beat in the bar. You can generally hear if something doesn’t sound quite right, so I’d suggest working on both.