Beginner Guitar Chords - Learn how to change chords FASTER !

Hello everyone, my name is Jonathan KIU, welcome to the music corner, this episode will focus on changing

chords

. Changing

chords

is one of the most complicated things for

guitar

ists. It's usually your weaker hand, in my case it's my left hand that does the pretty complicated work. All those different chord grips Now, if you're just starting to play

guitar

, you might be new to chords, but if you've been playing for a while, you've probably been playing chords for a few weeks, a few months, or longer. Chords are mandatory for guitarists, you can't help but master at least the 12 or 16 most common basic chords, but they can be problematic, for example, our right hand, in my case, my dominant right hand wants to do a lot of things.

The guitar is often held back because my left hand can't keep up with its end of the deal. The guitar is somewhat unique in that our two hands do fundamentally different jobs. You think of a pianist. Both hands play the keys. the saxophone, both hands press the keys, the guitar, both hands perform fundamentally different tasks with fundamentally different challenges, so if you already play guitar or if you're just starting out, stay for the next 30 minutes and let's get to work. about changing chords and hopefully becoming a better guitarist, so grab your guitar, let's get started, you can't get away from chords on the guitar because the guitar is one of the most pop instruments that can provide chords to the world, the guitar and the piano now that the accordion has lost its popularity a bit the guitar and the piano are the two main chord instruments that every song needs Chords chords are the basis of a song so someone has to play the chords and usually It's the guitarist unless you have a pianist on hand, so let's talk about how you can get better at chords, whether you're just starting out or you've been playing for a while but feel like your left hand isn't quite right.

To keep up with a task, I'm going to give you some quick tips from the beginning, when you play the guitar, the elbow of your left hand here has to be free in the air, from time to time it can be tempting to lean in a little depending on Wherever you are sitting on the couch, you may find your elbow resting on your leg. This will slow you down, especially if you're not changing cables as fast as you want. that left elbow in the air is fine and remember it will help you a lot with your mobility, you want to find a comfortable chair to sit on and at the same time you don't want to slouch and let that elbow rest down there, another big part of developing a fast left hand, especially if you

change

a string, it's your thumb now, if you've watched a lot of DVDs or YouTube videos or live performances, if you've seen your friends play the guitar.

You may notice that your thumb actually moves a lot. You may see the thumb hanging off the top of the guitar. If a musician is strumming chords, he might grab the guitar like a snow shovel. See how my left thumb is here. of just hanging from the top of the guitar now I'm not going to say it's a good or bad technique, but you can get away with it with experience, which means your fingers can curl enough that it doesn't really matter where you put them. put your thumb in some cases is mainly when you've had a lot of experience playing chords or lead guitar and your fingers have developed a nice natural curve of their own now for other cases and especially for

beginner

guitarists where you can put your thumb.

Be it life or death, you may have to place your thumb around the curved part, the back of the neck, almost out of sight, pointing toward the ceiling. Now you may have to do it so that your fingers can curl over the open strings and just get to where they really want to go without damping the open strings where you put your thumb is partly a personal choice but partly out of necessity you may have You have to pay close attention to where you put your thumb, so while I play today we're going to talk. a little bit about that, one thing I like to tell my students is that they want to be comfortable and they want to be effective, of course, they don't want to put their thumb in a position that causes pain or discomfort, but sometimes the thumb is the link that's missing, it's the only element that needs to be adjusted so that the chords come out nice and clear and you can quickly switch to the next chord, so keep that in mind during today's episode, no matter where you see me put my thumb or what.

You see my other fingers do where you put your thumb is going to make a big difference. Well, another important factor in getting better at guitar and specifically getting better at changing chords is to use the fingertips of your left hand most of the time. most of the time you can't get away with using the fleshy pad of your finger and the sound isn't that good anyway, so unless I mention otherwise or your teacher mentions otherwise, stay right on the tips of your left hand right next to the The nail is a little sensitive there, but it's worth it and that skin will get tougher the more you touch, okay, so we're talking about your elbow being free, we're talking about your thumb, let's call it mobile .

I like that your thumb is mobile, that is, for some chords. your thumb may be in one position for other chords, it may be another position, you certainly don't want your thumb to be locked in any position, well, keep your thumb flexible and like I said, keep your eyes on the YouTube videos or any other DVD you can. watch your friends when they play and you'll see that their thumbs can move quite a bit depending on exactly what they're playing, so now let's get into some details, let's take two chords that go together well: the E minor chord and the A chord so let's take a look. look at my left hand here the E minor chord of my left hand I'm going to use my index fingers and middle index finger the fifth string second fret middle finger fourth string second fret now many of you know this chord already most people agrees that it is the easiest chord of the root chord.

The chord is that everyone has to

learn

the old E minor and when you play E minor I encourage you to strum the six strings with your left hand now I hope that you are doing this chord right now that does not present any difficulty to you and maybe already You know this chord and that's great, now what I'm going to ask you to do is move that E minor chord to an A major chord, watch what I do. I just moved my fingers towards my knee, major chord, index finger, fourth string, second fret, middle finger, third string, second fret, ring finger, second string, second fret, so here's E E minor and here E to right, so I'll talk for the next few minutes we're going to use those two chords as our chords to improve your technique and

change

these are two of the easiest chords, but that doesn't mean they can't be improved, it doesn't mean Change between them is easy from the beginning, so this is what I want you to think about.

Find your E minor chord. Take a good look at your left hand. Make sure you use the tips of those fingers. Make sure to curve them. around your uh your fingers I call that a rainbow curve, this curve here is okay, I've done previous episodes on how to play chords, so today's episode is really going to be about how to change from one chord to another. Transitions are Usually people get stuck on playing the guitar and changing chords, so here are some tips, first of all, prepare for the long haul here if with the different chord progressions we're doing today, if some of them are easy, don't worry.

We'll get to the harder ones in a moment, but you have to adapt to the long term and by that I mean you'll plan to do a lot of these. We're barely going to talk about strumming the guitar in this episode, we're really going to focus on your left hand and when you're practicing these things at home, I encourage you to just focus on your left hand, don't worry about adding some fancy strums, Don't worry about singing. To really master chord changes, you really have to focus, so let's talk about this E minor to A, so if the camera zooms in here on my left hand, you'll notice when I do this E minor to A, I'm sure I will. . seems easy, okay, two fingers, release them down, add a third finger from E minor to major, from E minor to major.

Here's why I make it look easy. I'm moving my fingers as little as possible now, that may seem like common sense, but let's stop. I show you a word: worst case scenario, here's my E minor chord. In the worst case scenario, someone lets their fingers completely leave the guitar and then has to find their way back. It's the most common thing I see beginning guitarists do and I did it myself because our fingers are not used to these subtle, subtle movements, certainly, if you're right-handed, you're not used to your left-handed person doing these subtle ones, your left hand does these subtle, subtle movements, okay, so the first tip from the beginning keep your fingertips as close to the guitar as possible as close to the strings as possible even even my pinky finger you can see my pinky finger is starting to move away a little bit here I don't need my pinky for this chord or for the e-minor chord, but it's actually a good habit to have that pinky nearby because for future chord changes I'll need to have control over that pinky, so this is called finger control. finger.

Point number one, keep that finger control disciplined, okay, don't let any fingers go astray. and it's going to be tricky at first if you understand it uh with these two chords you feel like you have good finger control with these two chords don't worry, there will be more challenging holds to come. I chose these two specifically because E minor and A major chords are pretty accessible, so point number one control your fingers, okay, keep your fingertips nice and close. Point number two, you must memorize these chords. Well, now we're only talking about two chords here. E minor and two chords that are quite easy to memorize.

If you have to refer to a piece of paper after a while, it's going to slow you down, so whatever chord you're working on, whether that's here with me on this music corner episode or if you're working on a specific topic. song and maybe there's a certain chord progression or chord change that just doesn't work for you, you have to memorize what those chords look like, I mean memorize what your left hand is going to do, your eyes really have to be on your left hand at all times is fine for this particular case, so point number one controls the right fingertips as close to the strings as possible.

Point number two memorize those chords that you don't want to have to look at on your music stand or a piece of paper, you really want to memorize those chords, whether it takes you 5 minutes to memorize them, a day or two, it doesn't matter, chances are the song you're working on use some of the fundamental chords A major C Major D Minor that you're in Anyway, I'm going to want to memorize those chords, so we might as well start memorizing those chords right now. Okay, remember I said prepare for the long haul, but I'm going to ask you to do it with me right now and certainly in your practice sessions is to repeat this chord progression as many times as you can.

It may not seem like the most exciting thing, but it's worth it in the long run, so here's what I'm going to suggest: four steady strums in E minor and four steady strums in A major like this, you can play with me here if you want a four * 2 3 4 and then E minor and a now For experienced guitarists, this probably doesn't seem like a big deal, but stick around. and pay attention during the show because sooner or later you will have to teach someone in your family, a friend, a loved one, how to play the guitar and maybe some of the things I say today can help you teach someone else to play the guitar. to get over the difficult part of the guitar process which is mastering changing chords, okay this can get a little dry after a while, changing two strings over and over again, so how can you make it interesting?

Well, we have to find a way to make it interesting because I hope you do it 100 times. How do you make it interesting? Get a little stopwatch or use your phone, anything that has a little clock on it and say, I'm going to do this. as many times as possible for 60 seconds, now the idea here is that you are teaching your fingers muscle memory, you know that you are getting these two strings into your muscles and, beyond that, you are also teaching your fingers how change. conveniently between these two chords as quickly as possible, so what I'm going to suggest is that you take something like a stopwatch strum on each chord once because the idea here is not beautiful music, ultimately that's the big goal , but the idea now is to take a minute of your life and do E minor and A as many times as possible for one minute.

I call it the minute of pain, not too much pain, although it's okay, so if I play one of each chord just once like this, E minor and E minor to I. You can practice a lotin 60 seconds, as you know, 60 seconds, in general, passes like this, but when you focus on a specific task, you can do a lot of things in 60 seconds if you feel up to it, do it. 2 minutes is 3 minutes, okay, but the point is that we're going to focus 99% of your energy on just switching between these two chords. Okay, now your right hand will give a little strum just to give your right hand something to do. and also to get some satisfaction out of this process because these chords sound good, you know?

I want you to consider that that minute of pain is okay when you're practicing, it could be with a much more challenging chord progression based on a son in which you're working on, something with some interesting jazz chords, whatever, but the beginning is a great principle is to focus on where the string change slows you down or keeps you up. Focus on those two chords. Now there can be more than two chords, but focus on two chords, do it back and forth as many times as you can. Hang in there, remember that you are investing in yourself as a guitarist here.

Well, it may not be the most exciting minute of your day, it probably isn't, but if you look at it in terms of the long term, you know, I think a year from now. Now you're going to do a lot of fun things with all these different chords, even if you only

learn

12 or 15 of the most basic chords, you'll use them for the rest of your life, so spend a minute here and there. I really master these strings by putting in that time, it's time well spent, no one has ever regretted mastering the strings, okay, so we've been talking about switching between E minor and a major notice, my elbow has lifted off my leg , my thumb, what works for me now.

Having a thumbs up like this now works for me doesn't mean it's going to be right for you. Many beginning students actually have to push their wrists out a little, not so much that it hurts, but push them out. a little bit and his thumbs end up right on the curve of the neck and if you look closely you notice that you can't see my thumb anymore right on my left hand it kind of disappeared. I have seen a lot. Of instructors encourage their students to have what they call an invisible thumb and that's not a bad idea, you know, essentially make it so that the viewer or your fans watching you can't see your thumb, that means your thumb it's on the curved part of the neck and it's hidden there, great tip as you get more experience with the guitar, you might be able to get away with using your thumb here and what's the big change.

Well, I'm not a uh, I'm not a hand waver here, but I guess what's happening is that as you play the guitar for 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, your fingers develop a natural way of curling around themselves like If they were more flexible than them. were before you started playing guitar and then where you put your thumb isn't that important at first, you have to push your wrist out to create this curve here with your left hand, but as you get more experience, your fingers have a pleasant naturalness. curve and they can do a lot for you without forcing you to do it by pushing your wrist back out where you put your thumb, it's a personal preference but of course we want you to be an effective guitarist so get comfortable with the shape.

You put your thumb in and you position it in a way that it can actually hold your fingers in a way that can help your fingers bend nicely and then you see what other people know, if you're taking lessons from a teacher, ask your teacher. tip, but where you place your thumb will definitely affect the sound of your chords and may affect how you switch between two chords. Your thumb may be in one place for one chord and in a different place for another chord, and that's fine as long as you'll get a good sound as long as you're comfortable, so our topic today, of course, is changing chords. .

I have taught many students for over 20 years and it is pretty much the number one obstacle most students face very early on. They have learned a few different ways to strum with their strumming hand. They understand how to play a chord. They have memorized how the songs go. They know a lot of the principles at work in terms of how music works. And still, after all. You may have been playing your work for six months or a year and you feel like your left hand isn't up to par, so that's what today's show addresses, let's pick two different chords, okay, we talk about uh to uh A major and E minor, let's talk about C and G again, two of the most common chords that you can't play on the guitar and avoid a C chord and a G chord, you see it everywhere.

Millions of hit songs have been written with C and G, now you can. I already know a C but let's take a minute here and look at my left hand here's your C major chord index finger it's always good to use your index finger as a reference point to start second string first fret middle finger fourth string second fret ring finger fifth string , third fret, the C major chord, okay, so let's focus on the left hand now again when I'm playing my C major chord. I can get away with having my thumb up here, which may not be right for you, you might want to Push your wrist out a little bit, that thumb will disappear behind the guitar and create a nice almost semi-circular shape here because we want the strings sound clearly, whether you press them or not, we want to bend and avoid. those other strings I see what you're doing my pinky is staying here right in your ear I said it's a good idea to keep all your fingers close even if you're not doing any work it's good a good habit in fact it's practically mandatory Habit to keep that finger close, okay, don't let it, don't let your finger come off, it's hard to do, although it's a real Mind Over Matter type process, so there's my C chord, now one of the most common companions for a C chord.

The G chord? C and G sound great together now that it's time to move on to a G chord. Look carefully. Do and Sol have a lot in common if you do it right now. Here comes the G chord. The first thing I'm going to do. What I have to do with my C chord is I'm going to take my middle and sound it over here. Each of them will move a rope towards me, towards my chin, a rope like that, we will see that they have the same relationship that they had a minute ago. You already know that they are on the neighboring ropes, but now they are on the two thick ropes.

I don't need my index finger for the G chord, but I do need my pinky here, thin string, third fret, so let's do a quick check we have the G major chord ring finger thick string middle finger fifth string pinky second string this is mandatory Friends now there are other ways to play G but believe me if you've just played a C chord and it's time to move on to G, this is how you want to do your G chord. Well, I'll show you the alternative in a minute, but you have to promise me that you're going to do G this way in this context.

Well there are a lot of things in guitar where there is more than one correct way to do something, this is one of those times, but I'll show you the best way to do it in this context, okay, so C and G come and go, it's okay, let's talk about the principles I'm on my C chord now principles left elbow free elbow in the right breeze I have to have it the thumb feels pretty good here you know, just being aware of where your thumb is I'm going to say the 95 % is going in the right direction you you I've already solved many of your problems simply by being aware of where your thumb is and knowing that it's mobile, so here's my free elbow.

My thumb feels good right where it is. I'm getting a nice, clear sound on the C chord. I'm not going to strum the thick string it gives a big, low e sound, it doesn't always sound as good with the rest of this C chord, so I'm going to avoid the fast string right here, okay, I'm using the same tips. my fingers on my left hand the tips as close to the nail as possible curving my fingers okay now another principle of finger control remember finger control as my ring and middle finger move towards the G chord see how they are actually , just gliding across the guitar, they were there for C and now G and that seems like a subtle movement which is exactly right, it has to be as small a movement as possible.

Here's the worst case scenario, my C chord and then suddenly what. it just happened I've lost my frame of reference I've lost everything right now that's what most of us do at first because it's hard to control our fine motor skills here we're talking about moving fractions of an inch to the right so c chord middle and ring as fast as you can as smoothly as possible, just move to the two fast strings, the index finger is out of work here, pinky, thin string, okay, another principle, right, think of yourself as if you were on this in the long term.

You can set your timer, say I'm going to do this one strum each for a minute, now you can go as slow as you want, but don't stop for a minute or two minutes, whatever you can handle, okay, so here we go . I'm going to do a C chord and then give myself a chance to switch to G and do that. Here comes C and then G, that's exactly what I want you to do as long as you can stand it, you can do it. 2 minutes 3 minutes and if you look at my thumb closely, my thumb moves a little bit, it feels more appropriate, it feels better in one place for the C chord and in another place for the G chord, now I don't want it you do.

Worrying too much about where my thumb is more about the principle that your thumb is mobile and can move to different places to support different chords in different ways now because this is a dry exercise here, switching between two chords over and over again and we want to. find ways to make it more interesting, so time yourself and commit to those 60 seconds or 2 minutes and say, I'm going to do this over and over again. It's a way to improve much

faster

on any chord change, but it's also a way to, you know, give yourself a chance to focus without going completely crazy without saying I'm going to do this for an hour, you know, say, well, I'll only do it for 3 minutes.

We all have 3 minutes in our daily routine to do this, you can find 3 minutes, but you can accomplish a lot, remember the idea here is that you are not focusing on any fancy strumming, you are not thinking about any specific song that you are focusing on what for most of us it's a big hurdle which is switching smoothly and quickly between chords, okay so we're talking about e minor going to a with the left hand, we're talking about c going to g, although the principles are the same for any chord now. You might be working on a song with your teacher that involves fancier chords, it might include bar chords where, uh, your index fingers extend across all the strings, some jazz chords that involve all four Fingers could be anything, but the principles are the same, let's do a quick check with the elbow free in the air, okay, using the fingertips of your left hand, not the soft pads here, but the tips of the fingers. fingers of your left hand, memorizing the chords, remember to memorize the chords, especially if there is only one. or two chords in a song that really hook you memorize the chords memorize the sequence they come in it could be G c D it could just be uh a a d whatever, but memorize what those chords feel like what eyes look like on your left hand Other important principle for today, right now, keep your eyes on your left hand, don't even worry about the right hand, it's okay, your left hand needs you, you guys get a lot better at, you know, during a practice session, once the left hand. has your full attention Okay, keep that in mind now for other things you can learn with the guitar, other moments, other songs, of course, it's okay to look at the right hand, look at the music, look at your fans, your audience, everything Alright. but today, for this specific exercise, I encourage you to keep your eyes on your left hand.

Many students over the years have told me: well, I want to be able to play without looking at the guitar, that's a big goal, that's not the goal. Well, it's not the goal, it's a big long-term goal. I encourage people to have fun when they practice and try to play without looking at the guitar, which is separate from what we're talking about today. Well, in fact, that's the kind of goal you're going to achieve, whether you intend to or not, you're going to get better and better at the guitar every day, every month, and you're going to end up being a player who plays a lot without look.

Anyway, what you really want to do is focus on exactly what's stopping you from being the best guitarist possible and for a lot of people, that's now changing chords with your left hand for those of you who are left-handed guitarists. Players, I hope you've been investing everything I've been saying today during our episode. It is your right hand that is working hard to change the chords. Well, now we have a little time left. Let's talk about A and D. a major that is going toD major two pretty easy chords, let's look at our left hand here a major that we saw earlier today right, I call that three fingers in a row, I'm moving my pinky out of the way just for our Here's the purpose so you can see those three index fingers center ring fourth string second fret third string second fret second string second fret I'm going to strum everything except the fat string I'm the remaining five strings, okay, now here's the change the new chord that we haven't talked about today the D major chord now look how your fingers can change from a to d look that a to d to a d now that takes practice it's funny that something that seems so easy can take a lot of practice, but that takes practice, so let's talk about this D chord here again.

It's better to have the pinky floating nearby, but I'm going to move the pinky out of the way so you can see what's going on here. index finger third string second fret ring finger second string third fret middle finger firststring second fret so again principles free elbow in the breeze mobile thumb support being aware of where your thumb is is a big part of solving any problem well nice fingertips and close I'm going to strum once on each string I'm not going to do it for seconds at a time, but that's what I want you to do at home, okay, in your practice time, strum on the A chord, strum on the D chord, hold your eyes on your left hand, a chord, D chord, okay, okay, so I think I've already heard about the different principles that are happening here today with the chord change.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode again. My name is Jonathan K. You've been watching the music. Corner, give us a call, send us an email and let us know if you have any. questions I'm going to play a little with my A and D chords see you next time here in the music corner