Hey,
Just in advance if i ramble i appologise Razz
I have been playing for around 5 days (acoustic), i can do the A-B-C-D-Dm-E-Em-F-G chords, i have no problem at all making them sound (which is think is due to my extra long and skinny fingers) Doing the chords is brilliant, not a problem, simple, switching between chords and i break down in a small damp corner wanting to slit my wrists (yes it's that bad) Ok it isn't that bad.. Going from Em to E or E to G or Em to G , Yea i can do that, after that and i royally humped.
I don't have time to get a guitar tutor (work), and i'm quite a perfectionist, and i'm easy frustrated which is not a good combination. Because i know i can do it,i know it's in there, hiding, waiting to be pulled out with a pair of giant guitar playing pliers. I will practice chord changes for half an hour solid, the same two chords back and forth, then when i can't see any significant progress, i'l get mad, "Put the guitar down and take a break" i say to myself, so i do......2 minutes later i pick it back up and play again, and this process goes on and on and on. The skin on my left hand fingers has hardened (at least when it was tender i had to stop) so i can play and play without any real discomfort, except the string marks wont dissapear from my fingers for a good few hours.
I keep thinking i must be doing something wrong, i am good at most things that i do, (I know ofcourse i am not going to be pro in a week) but i did expect (due to the fact that i found getting the chords down scarily easy) that my chord changes would
come relatively quickly too.
Am i being a twit for thinking this, it gets to me a bit because i know if i had someone saying,
"The reason your not getting this is bla bla"
then i could go
" Ah so if i do bla bla then bla will start to fall into place"
Was learning to play this frustrating to everyone? , is expecting this much just setting me up for disappointment, and why don't fingers do as their told the wee tikes! I can see them looking at me laughing "Ha you think im going to go onto that fret, think again buddy!"
I know a lot of people ask this but realistically, or from personal experience, roughly (i use the word to its full extent) how long does it take to gt fluent chord changes down for the main open chords ? how did you cope with the frustration? , did it come naturally to you?
To be honest i'm kinda just looking for advice because i never realized self learning was this "AH!"
If you got this far Have a cookie on me,
Thanks very much again for any input
Soxzs =)
For gods sake, 5 days? And you're already stressing over how much progress you're making! The fact that you've memorized the chord shapes in five days is wonderful, but the only way the changes are going to come easy is doing it over, and over and over and over again. And it doesn't matter if they're perfectly clean at this point, just worry about getting your fingers in the right place for now and the rest will follow with time.
Falling in love is like learning to play the guitar; first you learn to follow the rules, then you learn to play with your heart.
Yea, i read over what i said and it did seem kinda..desperate sorry about that.
I'm just a really demanding person on myself starts to eat away at me when things don't click straight away, i will continue to practice chord changes and just wait it out :)
For gods sake, 5 days? And you're already stressing over how much progress you're making! The fact that you've memorized the chord shapes in five days is wonderful, but the only way the changes are going to come easy is doing it over, and over and over and over again. And it doesn't matter if they're perfectly clean at this point, just worry about getting your fingers in the right place for now and the rest will follow with time.
Yup. TIME is the key word here my friend.
Learning/playing guitar isn't an event. Its a process. :)
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. - Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)
You have to accept that a large part of early progress is physical - muscles growing stronger, your hands becoming more flexible, just basic repetition. To some extent, there is a limit to how fast you can make progress, so don't beat yourself up over it!
Also, as you play more and start to notice things on a more subtle level, you will both be progressing as well as able to see progress better. Keep it up, sounds like you're doing quite well. :)
-- Voidious
Hi,
I'm afraid that you're either going to have to develop some patience or else find another hobby. :)
I think most of us like to see some immediate pay-offs for our efforts, but training your muscles and brain simply takes time. You wouldn't expect to just shoot 30 or 40 baskets and be Michael Jordan by the end of the exercise.
The brain also benefits from having some time to rest and organise what it's learned. So you will often find that the progress is more evident the day after than it is on the day you did the work.
It's a good idea - no make that "it's essential" - not to rush your learning. Your brain will file away all the stuff-ups and mistakes along with the successes and if you're too casual about it then next time around you can find yourself automatically repeating the same errors. Start slowly and accurately and build up speed gradually. As NoteBoat here says "Practice doesn't make Perfect, it makes Permanent". If you want to be permanently sloppy then by all means rush it... :P And don't "overtrain" or you'll risk getting tired and inaccurate and start going backwards again. Several short sessions with a rest in between are said to work better than trying to bash it home in marathon chunks. :shock:
Good luck. You're doing very well for a lousy 5 days!
Chris
"Yes"
Short and sweet i like it.
Thanks for all the input, i just needed some re-assurance that i wasn't progressing unnaturally slow.
Many thanks
well, lets see.
i've been playing for five years now and im still working on chord chages smoothly...!
well, lets see.
i've been playing for five years now and im still working on chord chages smoothly...!
:D :D
That's the truth. And it keeps going.. :)
One of the most famous and respected classic violinists was once asked why he still practiced each day, despite now being around 80 and apparently having already achieved everything possible in his field. He replied that he found that it still helped him improve... 8) :)
Soxzs, you're at that horrible stage where it seems to be all work and effort on your part with little tangible reward. The rewards WILL come....while you think you aren't progressing, your subconscious mind is slowly absorbing all the input you're feeding in. This works with your fingers too - sooner or later you'll find them slotting into the right places without thinking to much about what you're doing....we call this muscle memory. You wouldn't expect to go into a gym, lift weights for 10 minutes and come out looking like Mr Universe!
You seem to have learned an awful lot in the short time you've been playing - rather than just concentrating on chord changes, try putting them to use and trying some of the lessons...some of the two and three-chord songs might appeal to you, with the bonus you WILL see a tangible gain.
Good luck!
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
yea. I have been playing for forty years and I forgot how to make chord changes.!
don't ever practice over and over a chord change for half an hour. that is pointless.
there is no fun in that. all it is teaching you is how to tense up.
relax. set longer time frame goals even if it goes against your nature.
you are learning a new and really quite complex thing, if you think about it.
if you keep at it , you get better. there will be times when you really amaze yourself.
there will be days when you think you totally suck and were just kidding yourself you could play guitar.
you find that you play the same old thing over and over; and poorly at that.
then one day you will pick up your guitar and you will play something so sweet all the
bad things go away. you will play something you never thought of or thought you could.
you begin to listen to musical in a new way.
remember, guitar playing is like a narcotic.
you can't play it, it plays you.
in this instance...it is a good thing.
Hey,
I keep thinking i must be doing something wrong, i am good at most things that i do, (I know ofcourse i am not going to be pro in a week) but i did expect (due to the fact that i found getting the chords down scarily easy) that my chord changes would
come relatively quickly too.
Memorizing chord shapes is the easy part. All that uses is your brain, which works fairly fast.
The hard part is training the muscles in your hands and arms to form those shapes at almost reflexive speed, which I call "developing muscle memory."
That's going to take quite a while before you can do the changes effortlessly. It's par to learning how to ride a bicycle, or learning to write.
To quote Wes Inman from this forum, "To learn to play guitar well, you HAVE to accept the fact that you're going play really bad for a while."
I first picked up a guitar 42 years ago, and if I'm prevented from doing my daily practice sessions for a few days, I can feel the deterioration of my skill when I resume my daily schedule.
The best part is that as long as you keep plugging away, you will become a good player - no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Playing guitar and never playing for others is like studying medicine and never working in a clinic.
I think every beginner has gone through these frustrations. It's especially deceiving with chord changes, because it seems like such a basic skill so you assume it shouldn't be that hard to pick up... but that is definitely not the case. I've been playing for over a year (which is still considered a really short period of time), and I still can't always get my chord switches perfect. (And yes, I must admit that I also get frustrated by this at times).
Also, be sure to take certain things you read on the 'net with a grain of salt (especially anything on the ultimate-guitar.com forums). People tend to claim all kinds of crazy stuff like "yeah, Master of Puppets is a good beginner song, I picked it up after 3 days of playing guitar". If you believe any of that stuff, you'll totally get down on yourself and think your progress is abnormally slow.
A couple of things that helped me get a little more fluid with open chords.
1. Use a metronome, start with it relatively slow and gradually increase your speed, in 3 or 4 BPM increments. After a while you will notice some real improvements.
2. I still do this, I don't consider this my structured practice sessions, but when I am bored I will just strum open chords with different chord progressions (trying to find out what sounds good). That is how I really improved at open chord changes as well.
For your limited amount of time playing, you have made amazing progress.
Stick with it and good luck buddy!!
"A working class hero is something to be..." -J. Lennon
As another newbie (and late starter to guitar, sigh-why oh why couldn't I have been an angsty teen learning guitar in my bedroom all those years ago? Damn that clean living!) i'm going thru much the same emotions, and having to learn patience(why won't patience come more quickly?).
Some great advice, thanks guys, I'm playing to my metronome and trying to change on time, think its helping. Something I read on another site, was that it helps when changing chord to play the last beat (upstroke or 8th strum in 4/4 time) on open strings while you get your fingers in position for the next chord, it stops you making a pause and losing the rhythm. It seems to be helping me, anyway, so worth a try. :wink:
