Watch your right hand as you play this pattern again. You will notice that your hand actually moves up and down in a continuous motion, but it only makes contact with the strings on the down strum ( V ). The silent upward motion can be represented by a broken upward strum ( p ) indicating a silent upward strum.
So the basic rhythm could be written as:
These two rhythm patterns sound exactly the same.
When you play eighth note rhythms, (see Lesson 6) you will see that your right hand also moves up and down in a continuous motion sometimes making contact with the string and sometimes not. Some very useful and interesting rhythm patterns can result by incorporating eighth note rhythms with silent down strums.