Author Topic: BC-115 • 1 Minute Changes (Read 246724 times)

stitch101 · « **Reply #125 on:** November 27, 2013, 04:46:11 pm »

Quote from: Chsonnu on November 27, 2013, 02:22:12 pm

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?

The short answer is yes.
To help fix the problem practice plucking the root note first then strum the chord do this a few minutes
every time you practice your chord changes. This will improve the accuracy of your strumming hand and
help you to stop looking.

Newand(hopefully)willing · « **Reply #126 on:** November 28, 2013, 01:44:13 pm »

I've been doing the 1 minute changes for 4 days now, today will be the fifth. It's exciting to watch the improvements - the day before I actually started this exercise I had trouble with anchor finger practice as switching to and from E hurt my 1st finger. it toughened up somewhat in the meantime though. Things got steadily better from there. Yesterday i got the following scores:

D - A: 25
D - E:19
A - E: 21

Yes, i am aware that this isn't a speed contest, hence a question.Sometimes a note won't sound (mostly the 3rd string in E), and for some reason I fail to strum the 5th string in A once or twice per change. Do you guys think this is acceptable, or should i slow down?

Another thing i find distracting is some kind of tendency to half-strum. What I mean by this is that, probably due to the strum - pick - strum exercises I tend to strum the chords slower than normal in order to detect wrong notes / other mistakes etc. Any advice on combating this?

stitch101 · « **Reply #127 on:** November 28, 2013, 05:27:10 pm »

The one minute change is designed to help you make quick changes between chords. Two or three
mistakes out of 20 isn't all that bad but if your not improving with less mistake then it's time to work
on your accuracy.

Kebas · « **Reply #128 on:** December 27, 2013, 07:31:27 pm »

Hi all,

I'm a 60 year old beginner, and like to learn playing guitar a little.
But I'm affraid I can't get the chord switches fast enough.
Trying the first lesson for 4 weeks now and I'm stuck with about 25 switches per minute.
Are there other finger exercises to do, to enhance my speed of chord changes?
And are there other people of my age struggling with this?

Kindly regards,
Jacob.
The Netherlands.

bradt · « **Reply #129 on:** December 28, 2013, 01:23:30 am »

25 complete changes (a-e-a)? If so, you're good for now. 20 of those should be plenty to move on. Look on the last lesson of this section. At the bottom of the page is a section on when to move on.

There are other lessons later on with new ways to practice chords. You'll get to them soon enough. Just don't get hung up on perfection. That could take a lifetime and a day. For now, basic proficiency is fine.

As stitch said, work on some of the songs. Not only are they helpful, but they are a good way to judge where you are. Up until you start getting into strum patterns, if you can play a couple of the songs with all down strums, then you're probably safe to go forward.

You'll get there!

Newand(hopefully)willing · « **Reply #130 on:** December 28, 2013, 02:44:56 pm »

Assuming you can do 50 single changes, or 25 D-E or D-A changes for example, you can certainly move on to stage 2. If anything, getting to know the 3 new chords will actually improve your old ones. That's how it went fo me at least.

Be sure to learn at least 1 song from the 1st stage though, or practice chord progression at a certain beat. If you have a metronome, you can try strumming one chord 4 times at 40bpm and then change to another without stopping, repeating the 4 down strums. Once you are comfortable at that speed you can increase it to 50 or 60 and so on.

Like i said, There's no use dwelling on stage 1 TOO MUCH, since you might very well get bored with your limited options. It gets more fun in stage 2!

AcousticLounge · « **Reply #131 on:** January 01, 2014, 06:32:33 pm »

hey folks,

as others mentioned before, as soon as I do not watch my strumming hand, my speed of changing chords increase dramatically. But on the other hand, instead of strumming 4 strings with D and 5 with A, I do a lot of mistakes (sometimes 5 instead of 4, sometimes just all strings). But some of you said (as Justin did), it is all about speed here. So I hope, my way of practicing won't give me any bad habits in the future.

The comparison shows (1) looking to my strumming hand and (2) only concentrating on my fingers and chords.

     1     2
D to A   13   42
D to E   13   29
A to E   12   23

Newand(hopefully)willing · « **Reply #132 on:** January 01, 2014, 07:20:32 pm »

People have said it a million times on this site, and it didn't do much for me either while i was only reading and not experiencing it myself, but...

You just need to practice.

Once you develop the muscle memory you won't need to look at anything. It will come naturally and you won't even notice it. As for strumming the right amount of strings, the answer is the same. It just... "clicks" after a while. Of course, you need to be mindful of the mistakes you are making while you are doing your changes, but hitting an extra string or one less string a couple of times isn't something you should worry over if you are aware of what you need to be doing.

By the time you get good at stage 2 you will make much less mistakes and wil be able to express yourself more freely.

Nygaard · « **Reply #133 on:** January 07, 2014, 10:06:00 pm »

How do you guys change from the minor to the major chords?

From D to D minor I can get a lot more changes moving my 1st finger between the 1st and the 2nd fret on the low E string rather than swapping finger positions and moving finger 1 to the anchor position mentioned in stage 1 - 2nd fret, G string. Same with A to A min.

Is this "cheating"? (Myself anyways)

Kind regards

Christian

bradt · « **Reply #134 on:** January 07, 2014, 10:30:04 pm »

It's probably best to work on making the changes the way they are bing taught. As time goes on you'll find yourself making chords in loads of different ways, but for now it's more important to get your fingers used to the chord shapes as they are.

Drubbing · « **Reply #135 on:** January 07, 2014, 10:45:41 pm »

Quote from: Nygaard on January 07, 2014, 10:06:00 pm

From D to D minor I can get a lot more changes moving my 1st finger between the 1st and the 2nd fret on the low E string rather than swapping finger positions and moving finger 1 to the anchor position mentioned in stage 1 - 2nd fret, G string. Same with A to A min.

Is this "cheating"? (Myself anyways)

Kind regards

Christian

Justin has suggested the chords to change to and from, for a reason. There will be far more songs that use the suggested chord changes, than simply doing majors and minors together because you find them easier.

You'll see the point of the suggested practice as you progress - it's not just about 'hitting numbers' as quickly as possible.

mconnolly · « **Reply #136 on:** January 24, 2014, 03:37:31 am »

I am taking this slow and easy, and I am enjoying every painful moment (I am not a sadist!) of pressing my fingers on these coated metal stings. I have been at this for 6 days, so I certainly do not expect any "magic" moments to occur. However, I am having some difficulty with D major chord. The third finger continues to get in the way resulting sound when picking the first string and strumming the chord.

At this point in the learning process, I am not pressuring too much on the time. I have counted 12 transitions between D to A, then 15 transition on the next try. The quality of the D is obvious. Any other suggestions are welcome.

bradt · « **Reply #137 on:** January 24, 2014, 03:56:13 am »

It just takes time. Spend some time away from the one minute changes and work on this chord slowly.

One thing I would do is form the chord, then just pluck the individual strings until you have it right. Lift your fingers off and place them back down again. Try and mantain the shape and get it right straight away. It may take some work, but you'll get there.

justinguitar · « **Reply #138 on:** January 24, 2014, 08:34:38 am »

Y'all checked out my free One Minute Changes app right

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/one-minute-changes/id778908544?mt=8

The Great OZ · « **Reply #139 on:** January 30, 2014, 03:21:24 pm »

This is my first time posting and am a total newbie to guitar playing and this site, but although I read how to post under the "Help" tab I couldn't find the "New Post" thingie that it talked about, so forgive me if I am posting this in the wrong place.

I have been practicing the the D, A, & E chords for about 3 weeks now, and the E is a piece of cake, the D seems to be coming around, getting it about 60% of the time, and it seems like everyone else I am having a really hard time with the A chord. My question is, should I move on to 1 minute changes even though I am still struggling mightily with the A chord, will that help or hurt? Thanks for all your help in advance.

deadeye_ag · « **Reply #140 on:** January 30, 2014, 05:21:48 pm »

Hi,

You can start working on your one minute changes even if your D,E, and A chords don't ring out clearly 100% yet. If you look at Justin's stage 1 practice schedule he sets time aside for both practicing your chords (picking each string of a chord to make sure it is ringing out clearly) and changing between these chords (1-minute changes). A chord was a pain for me too. Are you using his suggested fingering or one of the others - the 1-2-3 fingering you see most of the time, or the mini-barre fingering? I found his preferred fingering was the magic combo that worked for me as my fingers are too fat to do the 1-2-3 way most people are taught.

In the end the 1-minute changes will help in that you are forming the chords more frequently so you get more practice with your chords, just be careful in that you aren't building bad hand placement into muscle memory. Hard to break a bad habit

One other tip that helped me, when any chord you are working on doesn't sound right, stop and figure out exactly which finger(s) are causing the problem. For the A-chord I have to make sure that first finger gets in under the other two fingers and close enough to the fret that it rings out properly. You can even simplify the chord to focus on just that problem finger(s) then add the other fingers back in after working on the problem.

In the end I've find that when I'm stuck on something related to guitar I just have to practice it over and over in small bursts and try and do it every day. 15 minutes 5-6 days a week is way better than 1-2 hours on a weekend. That builds muscle memory, finger strength and flexibility. Then one day you'll wake up and practice and your fingers just do it! It's really weird and awesome when you have those moments!

deadeye_ag · « **Reply #141 on:** March 13, 2014, 07:14:06 pm »

Even with tired fingers you can still work on guitar stuff. Here are some suggestions:

1) Work on the JUSTIN ear training he has at each stage, no guitar required.
2) Work on your strum patterns, just mute the strings with your fretting hand (Justin's RUST is worth the $$)
3) Listen to music, find the beat and work on foot tapping
4) Get Justin's Practice Music Theory for Guitar and start going over it, good stuff
5) Start learning the notes on the 5th and 6th strings

zorner · « **Reply #142 on:** April 09, 2014, 03:49:10 pm »

When I'm changing chords I have a problem that if I look at the neck I'm making mistake in the struming(for example I strum 5 strings in D) and if I look at the body of the guitar I make mistakes in the chords. I know that it will be solved by time and practice, but where do you recommend to look, at the body or at the neck?

stitch101 · « **Reply #143 on:** April 09, 2014, 08:29:04 pm »

To increase the accuracy of your strumming hand do the pick-strum-pick exercise.

Let's say you're having trouble hitting the D string in the D chord.
Pluck the D string then Strum the Chord repeat. Go slow at first and gradually speed up.
When you make a mistake stop and start over. Do this without looking at your strumming hand.
Do this every day for a few minutes and in a week or so your will hit that D string every time.
If you look at your hand to find the D string it will take you months to hit it every time.

Relying on your eyes when playing music only slows your progress because your brain will look for
the note then tell the fingers where to go. If you don't look at your fingers your finger will learn where
to go.

Borodog · « **Reply #144 on:** April 09, 2014, 09:34:13 pm »

I respectfully disagree with that exercise. I would say, do the same exercise, but if you make a mistake picking the D, do not stop; look at your strumming picking hand for the next pick to make sure you hit the next pick or two, and then look away again. Do not stop under any circumstances. Stopping when you make a mistake trains you to stop when you make mistakes, which is much worse than picking the wrong note in a chord in my opinion.

stitch101 · « **Reply #145 on:** April 09, 2014, 11:49:28 pm »

I agree that playing though mistakes when your playing is better than stopping but when you're practice
mistakes they become permanent so when practicing it's better not to practice mistakes. So stopping and
starting over I think is better.
Just my 2c

bradt · « **Reply #146 on:** April 10, 2014, 01:12:16 am »

During the 1 minute changes I don't think you should stop and set things straight with another exercise. The exercise is meant to be played straight through, warts and all. So, here I am with Borodog.

However, I think playing through mistakes in a non performance setting is generally not the best practice as Stitch mentioned. If you are making consistent mistakes, it is a sign to slow down and really work on it. Otherwise it becomes part of your regular playing.

Look vs don't look? Look wherever and whenever you want. Just be sure to mind your posture and how you are holding the guitar. One day before you know it you'll suddenly notice that you've just been looking out the window while you were playing. It just starts to happen on its own.

stitch101 · « **Reply #147 on:** April 10, 2014, 02:00:40 am »

Quote

You need those shapes in your fingers first. You can't get that without looking.

Drubbing I totally agree with you. You need to have these chords under your fingers. And until a beginner
has these shapes and chords under their finger I don't think they should be doing one minute changes.

If you watch the very first lesson Justin even says "It's really important to go thought this process many
many times before you go on and learn any more chords. This is way before he even teaches the one
minute changes. So if you can't play the chord what are you changing. Practicing wrong chords is not a
good idea so getting then under your finger first i think is more important.

Tim Mason · « **Reply #148 on:** April 10, 2014, 07:27:46 am »

My own experience tells me Stitch is right about this: I think I worked on the fast changes far too soon, and I have had to go back and relearn the early chords. But then some people have clever fingers while others have stupid fingers. Mine are very stupid - but we will get there in the end.

Jayrod · « **Reply #149 on:** May 07, 2014, 11:56:35 am »

As this is a test of pure fingerspeed and wrist movement, does it matter so much that the strings are creating noise between chords, I.e. not being muted somehow between? I feel even though I can hit the chord reliably, there is still this inherent messiness of string noise I between chords.