If I quit blame the D Chord!

its seirous if youre going to hang up the guiatr for D chord, it's got to be the easiest chords out there. Just wait till you get to F, that's something that'll really get you. :lol:

Just trying to encourage you, but stick with it, because once you learn it, you can use the D chord pretty much anywhere, and it'll sound good. Im still having trouble switching to barre chords and ive taken a little "vacation" from them (aka, I quit :lol: )

Im sure if you keep trying, it'll come to you

You know it's the meteronome!!!! Chill out and relax do it VERY SLOWLY rather than trying to jump to it. Eventually you'll get it. Don't give up the axe you'll only regret it.

I feel your pain. My advice is to really slow it down - to nanospeed. Really take it slow. If you've been practicing for a while and been getting nowhere then practicing a different way for a while may shake things up a bit - "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

Play it super slow for a few days, with out ever trying to change to it quickly, and then give it a go in a few days. The frustration with it is probably not helping either.

Give it a go. This has worked for me, if only to change my head-hunter approach and cool me down :evil: !

Don't give up, that what it wants you to do! :wink:

Mart.

I remember when the C cord was a challenge...just practice it'll take time. Best of luck and don't give up!

Just remember...If you give up on learning that D chord, the terrorists win!

I'm kidding. Keep working at it, take it slow. If you work at it, it will come.

Or, you can build a baseball field, and play with players from the 1940's or something.

Mike.

Any chord that gives me a hard time (and thats most the first time I try them) I just sit there and fret it, strum it for a few seconds, remove my fingers, plop them back down and strum some more. Boring but it works because it builds the muscle memory.

Second, relax and think about the fingering before you switch to it and remember you don't have to and don't want to fret too hard especially with the D.

Third, Try switching back and forth between the A and the D where you don't have to remove all the fingers.

Just practice those 3 ways and it will fall into place. And by all means don't use that darn metronome while you are doing these. This is not a timing issue it is a muscle memory issue.

Good luck and hang tight.

WOW! That's a lot of replies in a short time! Thanks for your support...

However I didn't explain myself to well in my frustration. It's not that I can't PLAY the D chord but I can't CHANGE (transition) to it...There is always a dead string...

What I just did was spent 20 minutes switching from the G to D and back (yes for the whole 20 minutes NONSTOP!)...I must have did about 1000 or more changes...I thought I had it then went to the strumming patter I have been practicing (see my post on strumming patterns) and of couse like clockwork I screw up! So I spent ANOTHER 25 minutes switching from D to E to G to D over and over and over and over...AT LEAST 1000 more times probably more...(I tend to punish myself when I can't get something right...I expect nothing but as close as I can get to perfection for myself)...

Right now my fingers are numb and when I stopped I could barely move my fingers (that's why the break now!)...either I get the D chord or my fingers fall off and I have to quit anyway (and I am DEAD serious!).

And yes I know everyone is saying "Wait til barre chords!"...well at least I EXPECT barre chords to be difficult! That is a given. Open chords should be easy...

Well now everyone can stop being impressed with my playing since my true colors have finally shown!

aside from moving back and forth from a chord where nothing is in place for the D, say like from E to D also ,assuming standard D chord fingering ie..Middle 1st string,ring 2nd, index 3rd, work on going from D to Dsus4 to D to Dsus2 to D ect... Get intimate with the chord. Play Dm and D7 also.
Sounds like a cliche but it will come to you and after a while you will wonder why you ever had a problem with that darn D chord.

What really kills me is that I am also working on Night Moves by Bob Seger and the the chords are G F quick C F quick G and I won't say I do it flawlessly but considering even the partial barre F chord is much harder than the D frustrates me even more...If you listen to Night Moves the change is fairly quick (for a beginner anyway) to be able to hit the F then C or G...I can do it MUCH easier than the D. Now I will say since I would consider the F chord much harder to play than D it doesn't frustrate me as much when I do miss it. I am sure that is probably part of it...the mental aspect...

For the life of me I just can't figure out what make the D so difficult for me to transition to. I practice it slowly over and over and over and yet I miss it at least 50% of the time (sometime more).

Mate, having listened to your recording awhile ago of Eight Days a Week, I thought your transitions to the D chord weren't too bad. :)

And after hearing your woes with said transition it got me focusing more on how well I myself made chord changes to D. Of course, I seemed to have the same issues as you. :o

See, I've always considered the D chord one of my better chords so was a bit surprised that my changes to it weren't all that great. Nevertheless, it's still not bad.

Something tells me though that whilst D is not a hard chord to play on its own, it is fairly difficult to transition to cleanly. I've been playing now for about two months (I think you've probably practised twice as much as me though :P) and still have the same issue as you ... so maybe this is normal? :?

All I can suggest is was has already been suggested. The only other thing you could possibly try is trying different fingering (eg. use middle, ring and pinky). If anything it might give you a bit of variation .... never know, maybe those fingers prefer doing the 'D'. :D

For the life of me I just can't figure out what make the D so difficult for me to transition to. I practice it slowly over and over and over and yet I miss it at least 50% of the time (sometime more).

Would I be right in thinking that you notice this issue mostly when transitioning from chords that don't share any of the strings with D (eg. G --> D as in Eight Days a Week).

How do you go when, say, transitioning from E --> D?

Personally I find my G to D is pretty ordinary ...

I miss it at least 50% of the time
Take heart, You are nailing it the other 50% of the time and in another month or so you will nail it maybe 75% of the time or more.
I have been playing 11 months now and even though I claim to have no problem with the D chord I do miss it every once in a while, not often but when I do, I keep playing while I make a quick adjustment and its usually not really noticable.

I don't have much to offer other than what's already been said. Nor can I offer any insight as to why I found as frustrating as you are - I hated transitioning to/from that D chord. It still isn't my favorite chord to move to/from, and I still miss it far more than I'm comfortable with, but it has gotten better.

Without actually watching you make the transition, it's hard to guess at why things aren't going well. But based on your comment about "dead strings," I'd like to hazzard a guess.

For most folks, the D chord offers the biggest temptation to wrap your thumb around the neck. Many good players, in fact, often play the D with the F# on the sixth string covered with their thumb.

But when you're just starting out you have to be very careful of that. Wrapping your thumb around the neck flattens the fingers doing the fretting and that is what (usually) causes dead notes.

If you can, try to pay special attention to your posture and how easily your hand moves when making the change. If you're playing while sitting, try to have the neck of the guitar raised so that your fretting hand is about chest high. Try making the change while holding the guitar "classical style" (meaning on your left knee if you're right handed). When standing, again make sure your guitar is high enough to fret it comfortably (and again your fretting hand should be about chest high).

I apologize in advance if you've already addressed these suggestions. As I said, without seeing you play it's impossible to know for sure, but I figured it could hurt to address some typical reasons for having hard chord changes.

And what everyone else says about repetition and starting out slowly - they are spot on.

Hope this helps.

Peace