One of the biggest challenges that many beginning guitarists face is being able to move from one guitar chord to another quickly. This difficulty becomes apparent to anyone listening because the music will suddenly be interrupted by a long pause until the guitarist gets to the next chord and resumes playing.
Unfortunately, if this problem is not corrected and the guitarist continues falling behind the beat, the end result may be that their sense of rhythm remains undeveloped.
That sounds pretty serious and you might be wondering if there is a way to increase your speed in order to change guitar chords more efficiently?
The answer is yes! And today I'm going to share a few "secrets" that should make changing guitar chords much faster and easier for you.
1. The first secret I want to tell you about is called: Economy of Motion. It's not really a "secret" among seasoned guitar players, and some of you may even remember me mentioning it before. But if you're new to the art, then it will likely be an unfamiliar term.
Economy of Motion basically means that less is more. In other words, if you reduce the amount of movement to get from point A to point B, you will become faster and more efficient.
One of the ways you can apply Economy of Motion to your guitar chord changes, is by leaving your finger down on any string that is played in both the chord you're on and the chord your moving to.
For example, your 3rd finger plays the 2nd string for both the A major chord and D major chord. So, instead of taking your 3rd finger off the string and placing it back down again when moving from one chord to the other, just slide it from the 2nd fret to the 3rt fret.
2. The next secret I want to share with you doesn't have a name that I know of, but it is very easy to do and also very effective.
Let's say you are strumming a 4/4 rhythm on the chord G and you just can't seem to change to the chord C without missing the first beat. Here's what to do...
* Hold the chord G and strum the first three beats.
* Lift your hand on the fourth beat and at the same time strum the open strings as you move to the chord C.
* Strum C on the first beat, second beat, and third beat.
* On the fourth beat lift your hand and at the same time strum the open strings as you move back to the G chord n time for the first beat.
* Continue on in this manner while gradually increasing your speed (tempo).
Put these secrets into practice this week and you should see a marked improvement on your chords changes.
Kathy Unruh is a singer/songwriter and webmaster of ABC Learn Guitar. She has been writing songs and providing guitar lessons to students of all ages for over 20 years.
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