If I quit blame the D Chord!

uh oh , a little break , a little rest , a little patience , a little prayer and here you go Dmaj into mike's court :lol: :wink:

I had a golf instructor a few years back who told me that it takes an average of 30 days of regular practice to build decent muscle memory, it doesn't matter what the sport or activity is. If it's not developing as fast as you would like, just try to cut yourself some slack on this, it will happen for you. Little runs of just D chord variations are a lot of fun and get you thinking about hand and finger positons. My D chord issues usually happen because of bad hand position and flat fingers.

I had a golf instructor a few years back who told me that it takes an average of 30 days of regular practice to build decent muscle memory, it doesn't matter what the sport or activity is. If it's not developing as fast as you would like, just try to cut yourself some slack on this, it will happen for you.

I teach physical education so I know a bit about muscle memory. There is some truth to this statement but basically we ALL learn at a different pace. Different factors will vary the amount of time it takes to learn something. Stress, poor health, practice time, emotional health all play a factor in the learning process. Currently for me I think it's a combination of stress and emotional health. I just went back to work after summer vacation of nothing but relaxation. Kind of a stressful time right now adjusting. Plus some personal problems are keeping my mind occupied.

As for drinking alcohol and learning...I read a research article while in Grad School and it said in order to recall something that is learned the same conditions need to be present when trying to recall it. They used an example of taking a test. Two groups of subjects studied material for the test while drinking caffinated coffee. However only one group was allowed to drink caffine for the test. The goup that had caffine during the learning AND the test did MUCH better. There was a similar study involving alcohol and another one involving the environment and the results were similar...

So basically I would have to be drunk everytime I want to play the D chord! :lol: :lol:

This is probably a stupid newbie idea. But if you're having trouble with the fingering of a chord, couldn't you use another fingering to play it since a chord can be played more than one way. Or is that a bad idea?

I considered that but I have already done this with the A chord (I play the A6 chord x00222) and I don't want to get in the habit of avoiding learning something hard. I know I will have to go back and learn the A chord properly so I might as well learn it the right way now.

As for drinking alcohol and learning...I read a research article while in Grad School and it said in order to recall something that is learned the same conditions need to be present when trying to recall it. They used an example of taking a test. Two groups of subjects studied material for the test while drinking caffinated coffee. However only one group was allowed to drink caffine for the test. The goup that had caffine during the learning AND the test did MUCH better. There was a similar study involving alcohol and another one involving the environment and the results were similar...

So basically I would have to be drunk everytime I want to play the D chord! :lol: :lol:

Hey, that's as good an excuse as any :)

Actually, I think what you're talking about is cognitive recall, which is entirely different than being able to relax enough to get your fingers into position to play a chord. It's not lack of cognitive ability. You already KNOW what finger to put where, but you apparently have trouble getting your fingers to do what your brain is telling them to do.

As for a little (okay maybe moderate) amount of alcohol, I seem to play better, and not tense up near as much. That's just me, though. Like I said, I'm certainly not advocating getting drunk all the time just to play the guitar. You'd end up with problems just a bit more serious than not being able to play a D chord.

Actually, I think what you're talking about is cognitive recall, which is entirely different than being able to relax enough to get your fingers into position to play a chord.

Actually it applies to ALL learning not just cognitive...I wish I still had the articles...they really were very interesting. My masters degre is in Movement Studies In Disability and our main focus was in the psychomotor domain. You can do an experiment. Learn something new on the guitar, say a new riff, and you learn it using your favorite pick (if you have a favorite pick...Hey I do!). Now try to play the same riff the next day using a different pick. It will take time to get used t the new pick. Do the same experiment with different variables like different rooms, chairs, sitting vs standing...

Now the more experienced player you are the less these factors will effect you. $100 says the New Orleans Saints are going through this with having different practice facilities than they are used to. Plus if you have ever played football coaches like to practice in similar environments as a game. So that's why they practice with simulated crowd noise...to get the players familiar to live game situations...

Heya Mike,

Well...I could echo several others and say 'put the guitar away for a day or two, then come back to it'. It is what I do when I quit bumping the wall and actually start full body smashing into it. Whatever I was stuck on usually shakes loose after a short rest.

You could try something like 'My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys'. The song is in 3/4 and the chord changes are easy to keep up with. You wanna hit the bass note of the chord on first beat of each measure but that shouldn't effect changing from chord to chord. You could even sub Amaj for A7 and get some practice from it to D and back.

(Using A will sound a little different...A isn't as...sad?...as A7, but I wasn't sure how far along in chords you were)

- Kit

A7 is easier to play than Amaj
A7 X02020
A x02220
I don't understand the need to substitute?

A7 is easier to play than Amaj - I don't understand the need to substitute?

It wasn't to make it easier. I thought he said Amaj was one of the chords he was practising and not liking. Subbing it for A7 would let him work on it at the same time as Dmaj.

I also wasn't sure he was to A7...I am kinda random in my chord learning (aghh...is that even a sentence?..anyway) but he sounded like he was going in a specific order.

- Kit

Well if it makes ya feel better I have been progressing pretty good but cannot use Dmaj in any song I play, I have been using dsus2 fingering and leavin out the high e string. This thread though has convinced me to get started doing it the right way starting with slow progressions. Its going to take a while to change the way I been playing songs since i'm so use to the two finger way.

If someone though could give an opinion on this please. If I substitute a chord that sounds just as good as Dmaj is it really that bad. I know it will cause problems with D TO DSUS2 to DSUS4 but is there other reasons that its no good?

None that I can think of, I substitute chords quite often.
It is good to be able to play the proper chords for various reasons like the Dsus progressions for example.
One other place that most substitutes don't work is when you are playing arpeggioes or most fingerstyle music because you are playing the individual notes of a chord.

Thank you missleman....I thought the same thing about arppegios, but I notice if the chord subsitute is similar the arpeggio also sounds ok. I will admit though those Dsus progressions sound very nice

I don't kown if anyone has said this but you can try breaking down the chords into groups. then once you get a part you can combine them. this has really helped me alot. :)

Well like everyone said I would eventually get the D chord and now I can hit it about 80% of the time (give or take a few percent!). The 2 big factors (well three if you include all of your support!) are that my stress level is down since I am into my work routine and secondly, I didn't give up nor take a break from it. I made the decission that I wasn't gonna let the D chord beat me.

Thanks again everyone for all your help and support!

Last tip.

If you're still struggling a bit, stick a capo on the 2nd fret. The fact that this tends to lower the action a tiny bit, and also makes you play with frets that are a tiny bit closer together, can help.

Obviously once you're really competant take the capo off.

Cheers

Matt