Look for shortcuts
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What I mean by this is to find ways in which you can change to the next chord without having to move ALL your fingers. If you were to take a look at most of my videos over Youtube, you will notice that sometimes, you don't see my hand moving much when changing from chord to chord. Let me give you some examples:
When playing a song in the key of G, you will find that 3 common chords you will use are G, C9 and D. This is how the chords look like pictorially:
Okay, so notice how each chord is played. There are shortcuts you can use when changing from chord to chord. The common mistake I see beginners do is to play the G chord, then take off ALL their fingers and position it to the C9 chord, and then take off ALL their fingers and position it to the D chord. This is not the best way to change from chord to chord.
From G to C9, notice that the only 2 fingers that need to move are the 1st and 2nd finger (index and middle finger). The 3rd and 4th finger stays. From C9 to D, notice that the 3rd finger (ring finger) stays, while the other fingers move. From D to G, notice that the 3rd finger is still at the same position. If you follow these shortcuts (not having to take off ALL your fingers when changing chords), it can greatly increase your speed of changing from chord to chord.
Practice
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This is always the best way to improve changing chords. PRACTICE. Now that you've seen an example of how you can look for shortcuts, you can do likewise with other chords. However, with that being said, there are some chords which you will have no choice but to take off all your fingers and position it for the next chord. That is why PRACTICE is important.
Believe me, you can practice to a point where you can memorise how each chord pattern is played. A good way to know if you've memorised the chord is to see if you can even finger the chord pattern without having a guitar fretboard to place your fingers on.
I will probably be posting up more diagrams on how I change between chords in my next blogpost. Till then, practice hard!
7 comments:
Wish you had pictures for us poor lefties--it's difficult finding information online that has diagrams drawn for us!
that's why I learned right handed instead
You can easily do it in MS Paint.
Image -> Rotate -> Flip Horizontal
You can easily do it in MS Paint.
Image -> Rotate -> Flip Horizontal
Being left handed makes absolutely no difference when looking at chord digrams...I know this, as I'm a left handed...
i just found your site,very good indeed,i will be visiting regular now as im trying to learn to play myself.
i have just found your site,very good indeed,as iam trying to learn to play i will be visiting again.
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