I have determined to clean up my sloppy changes into the C chord. I made the rookie mistake of playing too fast before I had mastered the changes. I have picked up a metronome and devised a plan.
Start at say 60 bpm changing from G to C to D to C in a quarter note pattern, then eighth note, then quarter note with bass strum.
Move on in increments of 10 bpm until accurate changes can be made at speeds up to 120 bpm.
Does this sound like a good approach?
It sounds like a good plan but there's one thing you should check before you try it out. When you shift from G to C, which finger do you plant on the fingerboard first? Most beginners will place the index finger first, which means that you usually wait until the rest of the chord is placed before starting your strum. Since most strums on chord changes are on the downstroke, well, you can see what happens...
The idea is that since you're strumming down, you should try to get the lower notes in place first and (ideally) the other fingers fall into place as you're strumming. It may look simultaneous, and once you get going it probably seems simultaneous, but it reality your fretting hand is beating out the strumming hand by a nanosecond.
If you are going with the index finger first, try to make a big effort to get the ring finger to be the first finger you place when forming your C chord. That alone should clean it up a lot.
I'm in the middle of writing a lesson on this, which will hopefully be up online sometime late next month. We'll use the song You Are My Sunshine in order to work on these specific G to C and back changes.
Hope this helps.
Peace
David:
Yes, my index finger does plant first. A problem that is especially apparent when I play bass strum style and the pluck on the A string yields a strangled note. Hurry up with that lesson please!
In the interim, how do I de-program my fingers to work as a unit?
THANKS!
Hi David,
Any word on the lesson for "Time After Time". It seems like such an interesting song for a lesson. Are you still planning on doing this lesson?
Hopefully before the end of next week on the Time After Time lesson. It was already to go until I realized I'd screwed up the notation and tab and I'll be spending the weekend rewriting it (bet there'll still be mistakes, though! :wink: )
As far as "deprogramming" or "reprogramming" your fingers, there are many approaches. One that seems to work, believe it or not (and this is the crux of the You Are My Sunshine lesson), is using a walking bass line up from G to C. This forces you to get that ring finger down first and after getting that into your system, it seems to naturally become part of forming the C chord with or without the walking bass line.
Okay, back to the writing...
Peace
I use to do the one finger at a time thing. Then I did what you are planning to do, not to your extent though. I just played D to C then G. I pretty much made a song of it and just kept going until one day I realized I did what I set out to do (same thing happened with barre chords). I had alot of fun with it.
I try not to set too many rules though, it's all about the fun. Then again, I suck, so don't go by me! :lol:
Really though, have fun, make a song out of it or something.
BTW, what's so bad about your change?
great advice.
I would like to add a bit of flavor to your practicing;
thinking about making those chords more rythymic.
Neil Young is a guitar role model for me. if you listen closely
there is a rythmic, almost, lyric voice coming off the strings
when he plays his chord changes.
he forms a G chord with the pinky on the 1st string 3rd fret
middle finger on the 5th string 2nd fret
ring finger on the 6th string 3rd fret
going to C index finger comes down on the 2nd string 1st fret
middle and ring jump up to the strings above them;
D and A string respectively.
the change from G to C becomes fluid.
the pinky can touch back down as an embellishment.
going from C, then , to D is done normally, the way we've all learned.
check it out.
