BC-115 • 1 Minute Changes

[Drubbing]

Personally, I think an absolute beginner is only making it harder by not looking at their fretting hand to learn their chords.

Yes, they might end up relying less on sight earlier than others, but progress will be much slower, and take longer to get onto playing simple songs. This will frustrate many people IMO.

I preferred to learn my chords by sight and let the muscle memory tae over with practice and repetition. Without 'learning' how to do it, I can find and form any open chords (and a few barres) by feel.

[bradt]

Personally, I think an absolute beginner is only making it harder by not looking at their fretting hand to learn their chords.

^ that

Look at your hand while you play. That's fine. When we first learned to tie our shoes we looked very closely at the process as we did it. Now most of us can do it blindfolded without a second thought.

I found the same thing to happen with playing guitar. Eventually you just start looking round naturally. It just happens on its own.

[Dr Winterbourne]

Just got done with my first week of playing guitar.  I have practiced every day from anywhere between 1-2 hours each day split into 15-30 min. sessions.  Currently at 82 from D to A, 83 from A to E, and 60 from E to D.  I've pretty much been solely practicing chord changes during each practice session.

60 would be fine. You don't need to change that fast yet, as if you just began your strumming wont be that fast yet, especially if you spent all your time on just one aspect. Check the consolidation list for Stage one, because you can do ADE, so maybe time to add some more chords.

Do not over specialize yet; practice chord change speed, yes, but also strumming, and chord accuracy (strum pick strum), aural training and songs. Start on the songs straight away. Just trust the course.

[stitch101]

I preferred to learn my chords by sight and let the muscle memory tae over with practice and repetition. Without 'learning' how to do it, I can find and form any open chords (and a few barres) by feel.

How good are you at learning by ear? You'd be a lot better at it if you used your ear to learn your chords
and not your eye. When you where first learning how many times did you look at your fingers to fret a
chord then strum that chord an it was wrong? I see that happen with beginners all the time. Your ears
never lie but your eyes do. I'm not saying never look, when I'm learning new chords I still look but the
sooner you stop relying on your eye the faster you learn the chord.

[Drubbing]

How good are you at learning by ear? You'd be a lot better at it if you used your ear to learn your chords
and not your eye. When you where first learning how many times did you look at your fingers to fret a
chord then strum that chord an it was wrong?

I used both. My ear sucks though, as I've not done any of the ear training, which I should have.

When playing and not looking I can tell instantly if I've missed a chord slightly. I don't miss by much, but it's obvious. I still use both when learning new chords.

I'm not disputing it's an important skill, but beginners need to decide if they're going to do it - it will slow them down significantly, and some people will prefer the skill to evolve naturally.

I don't have the time or patience to be a really good musician as well, I got 3 kids a FT job and help my wife run a family business. I want to play stuff I enjoy. If that means watching the fretboard more regularly than others, then I can live with that.

[Dmon1Unlimited]

Should you ideally be playing till your fingers hurt?

I want to keep playing till this happens but I always come short because of my wrist getting uncomfortable. I can only play a couple minutes before it gets uncomfortable. It seems like this issue is hindering me from getting the most out of my sessions and making this longer to learn than expected

I've been doing some twisting exercises (holding a book and doing about 50 reps of twisting) but I'm not sure it's working (though I've only started it recently). I also tried to alter my hand placement (when switching between A and E fretting, by having my thumb parallel to the neck instead of perpendicular). This helps although I don't know if this is bad practice

[Drubbing]

You need to find a relaxed moveable position. The thumb should point upwards, not along the neck.

[misterg]

Should you ideally be playing till your fingers hurt?

I want to keep playing till this happens but I always come short because of my wrist getting uncomfortable. I can only play a couple minutes before it gets uncomfortable.

It's not unusual for your finger tips to hurt as a beginner, BUT your wrist shouldn't. It sounds like you need to review your posture, etc. to get your wrist into a position where it's comfortable. You may develop serious problems if you don't.

Common beginner issues that seem to come up regularly here are:

1) Tilting the guitar towards you to see the fingerboard which puts pressure on your wrist as it has to bend through the extra angle;

2) Playing on a sofa or a low chair, or an office chair with arms etc. that means you can't adopt a correct seated position;

3) Having the neck of the guitar too low - go as far as having your fretting hand level with your ear!

If you're doing any of these things, try and correct it and get your wrist into a more natural position where it doesn't get uncomfortable.

Once you've developed a bit of technique you can probably compromise on any / all of these things because you will have learnt what doing it right feels like, and can make your own judgement.

I'm not sure what you hope to gain by the twisting exercise - it would concern me that it will do more harm than good.

Seriously - resolve the wrist issue. If you want to post a picture of you in playing position, we may be able to give you some pointers.

Andy

[Djordje]

I have a question about progression towards new steps.

Justin stated to stick with a routine until you can do at least 30 chord changes? Is that 30 full changes or per change. Like Dm-Em = 2 changes.

Just wondering.

[bradt]

I have a question about progression towards new steps.

Justin stated to stick with a routine until you can do at least 30 chord changes? Is that 30 full changes or per change. Like Dm-Em = 2 changes.

Just wondering.

There's been a lot of discussion on this. I think the 30 full changes or 60 individual is a good mark. I moved on at about 20 something, and just kept working on them if one or two of the changes was giving me trouble. If you feel comfortable enough with the chord changes to play along to one of the songs in the lesson using all down strums, I would say you are fine to move on at this early stage.

Some of the stages coming up have techniques that will help a lot with practicing chord changes. As long as you don't jump too far ahead you should be fine.

[Dinos_1998]

Ok first I started playing guitar a week ago....
My first results is
D-A = 20
D-E=26
A-E=26

Is that good???

[Cal]

Is that good???

After just one week?  BRILLIANT!

Keep up the good work (I really mean keep up the good play). 

[Dmon1Unlimited]

Move on. Keep practising the D as slow as you need to, to get it right. Then speed it up.

Should you be palm muting the sound after playing each chord?

I get a buzzing sound at the end of my chords, which I suppose is expected because I am releasing my fret hand to play the next chord while the strings are still vibrating. But because I have to change chord as quickly as possible, I can't tell whether the buzzing is because I am genuinely not pressing hard enough or because I'm just switching between chords while the string is still vibrating

Palm muting resolves the issue but also ruins my capability of getting 60 chord changes a minutes

Current progress:
D-A ~60
A-E ~60
E-D ~20

[bradt]

I have been stuck on this for weeks now and it is really discouraging Someone suggested for me to move onto the next stage and simply keep practising the D changes along with the new chords, but I feel like I would simply leave it behind and never improve on it if I did that.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Like drubbing said, move on. You're going to be using the D chord A LOT no matter what you do, so you'll get plenty of practice with it. Strangely enough, as you learn new chords your changes on old ones gets better too. Spending weeks on one stage will just burn you out. You'll get it eventually.

Should you be palm muting the sound after playing each chord?

I get a buzzing sound at the end of my chords, which I suppose is expected because I am releasing my fret hand to play the next chord while the strings are still vibrating. But because I have to change chord as quickly as possible, I can't tell whether the buzzing is because I am genuinely not pressing hard enough or because I'm just switching between chords while the string is still vibrating

Nope. If you are having an issue with buzzing it is either your technique or the guitar.

Are you still doing the strum, pick, strum exercise? You should be doing that along with the 1 minute changes so you can suss out where you need work. Just play the chord real slowly and get it sounding good. Once you have that, start doing changes very slowly. See if you can figure out what is causing the buzz.

It's a lot easier to get faster by starting slow and cleanly than it is to get your chords clean by going fast and sloppy. Slow down and really check it out. You'll have it sounding proper in no time.

[Northwest29]

Greetings all,

At this point in my guitar journey how concerned should I be about changing cords without looking? Is this something that will just happen after a great deal of practice, or is there a future lesson that helps teach a method? Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts -

Ron

[stitch101]

At the beginning you'll have to look because you don't know the chords. Once you know the chords and
can do the changes the sooner you can do them with out looking the better. At this level it's not the most
important thing but it never to early to start. If you can't do it that OK it will come.

[Dinos_1998]

Firstly I bought the deluxe edition of begginers book ITS AMAZING !!!!!
I have seen already some difference. I can easily play all the song from songbook.
Also my changes  are :
D to A =50(No buzz)
D to E = 42(-3 buzzes)
A to E = 60(-2 buzzes)

I'm so glad !!!!       

[d.friend]

I came up with a practice technique that helped me a lot with chord changes. I thought to share it here and maybe others will find it useful. I was stuck in the high-teens to (on a good day) maybe the low 30s changes per minute. When I started using this technique the change rate went up very quickly and it took only a few days to achieve and consistently make 60 per minute. I stumbled on this while trying to use a metronome to play some of the beginner songs. So this technique has not only helped my chord change speed but also my ability to keep the beat.

Here's what to do.

Use a metronome to keep the beat and strum chords to the beat. Use 4/4 time - four strums (beats) per bar.
Start with a very slow tempo. The metronome on Justin's site wasn't slow enough for me. It seems not to go any slower than 60 beats per minute. But a web search quickly found numerous on line metronomes that do go slower.

Pick any two chords and start by playing one bar of each chord. Playing the chord four times gives me time to think ahead to where the fingers go for the next chord. It also allows time to see if the correct strings are being struck and to make minor finger adjustments to clean up the chord for the next strum. Keep this pattern going until it is working well. Then, without stopping, increase the difficulty by strumming each chord twice per bar. For example strum A twice and then D twice. Keep this pattern going until it is comfortable. Then make the final step and change the pattern to alternate the chord with each strum. Again, don't stop playing, just change the pattern. Try to keep that going for a minute.

If you get all fumble-fingered keep going but change back to the previous, simpler pattern. For example, if alternating on each chord starts going bad switch back to the two and two pattern. If things are really whacked then start over with a full bar of each chord and work your way up to alternating on each strum.

When you can alternate chords with ease increase the tempo on the metronome and start again with 4 strums of each chord per bar.

I was amazed and delighted by how quickly I progressed and hope other beginners find this helpful.

Dave

[Clambone56]

d.Friend   

Funnily enough I hit on the same system and swear by it...had been meaning to post something then saw yours. It is a great way of doing it and I find just as you do that when you are changing between 2 chords it is a bit easier to play them twice then change so if you can't keep up with the metronome at say 50/min then you just slow it down to 40/min or whatever (40/min is the slowest mine goes...)  then build up adding 2 beats a minute. It is amazing how the brain soon figures out the changes and you suddenly find you can do that particular change at that speed changing every beat and gradually move up to 60/min. I found that filling in the One Minute changes chart on P. 98 of the beginners book was a great incentive to keep at it as you gradually increase all the changes to 60 (took me a year). The main thing is that every day you see some progress even if it is only a measly 2 beats per minute better, at least it is progress! Feather by feather the goose is plucked....

[Murgul]

I want to ask a question.
For example, when you change between C and Am, you move only your 3rd finger, and I want to know if you keep your 1st and 2nd finger pressed down on the chord or you release the chords when you make the change?

Edit: I don't know why it post here, I was in  Topic: BC-134 • 1 Minute Changes
Can a mod please move it?

[mod edit - done]

[mouser9169]

40 bpm is the slowest some metronomes go because it is _extremely_ difficult for humans to keep time any slower without a lot of practice (which generally involves counting quick divisions - like 16th notes - steadily in your head). So if you need/want to play at 30 bpm, set your metronome to 60, and play on every other click (ie: the metronome is now counting eighth notes instead of quarter notes.

[bradt]

I want to ask a question.
For example, when you change between C and Am, you move only your 3rd finger, and I want to know if you keep your 1st and 2nd finger pressed down on the chord or you release the chords when you make the change?

When you're playing you will most likely leave your fingers on the strings and just move the one. Sometimes you may lift slightly to mute the chord, but you'll only really move one finger.

During practice, especially at this stage, I would think it would be more beneficial to go ahead and lift all the fingers so that you are laying them down as a complete chord each time.

[mouser9169]

During practice, especially at this stage, I would think it would be more beneficial to go ahead and lift all the fingers so that you are laying them down as a complete chord each time.

I disagree: The way you practice will be the way that you play.

You wouldn't lift your fingers making that chord change while playing (not even for a quick 'mute' since you have open strings playing), so don't lift them when practicing the change.

This isn't "practice making a C chord" and "practice making an A minor chord."
It's "Practice changing from a C chord to Am and from Am to C."

There's a big difference between the two. Yes, that means you shouldn't have much difficulty hitting your changes per minute target for this particular chord combination. That's ok, there will be plenty of others that will have you throwing your picks at the wall in frustration - don't artificially turn this into one of them.

[misterg]

I want to ask a question.
For example, when you change between C and Am, you move only your 3rd finger, and I want to know if you keep your 1st and 2nd finger pressed down on the chord or you release the chords when you make the change

For the 1 minute changes, keep as many fingers as possible pressed down (the 'anchor finger(s) ).

When you're doing the other part of the exercise (the strum-pick-strum) you take all of your fingers off.

[Chsonnu]

Hi all, I have to constantly look at my strumming hand or I'll end up strumming the wrong amount of strings.  Is this a bad habit I should try to break early?