changing chords

[Sean]

Alright I have hit my first MAJOR obstacle in Doug’s Basic course. It’s changing the cowboy chords. Playing the pentatonic scales have been fun, as this generation says “instant gradification” but switching chords what a pain in the A*#. The “C” chord is so difficult. I keep walking my fingers to create the shape. I have watched Doug demonstrating it back and forth and what I have noticed is that he seems to hit the shape hard almost hammering the strings. Also he hooks the fretboard with his thumb. Is this what everyone does for stability? Should I be placing my thumb in the back as suggested in the previous lessons? When I was a kid I took a typing class we had to learn “home” is the thumb on top “home”? Or maybe this is a learned habit from Doug’s beginning of playing guitar? Any tips on making this exercise easier or not such a road block? I watched a Steve Lukather interview where he said once he could change through the basic chords shapes with ease is when learning guitar became easy.

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[Igglepud]

The thumb hook is probably just to mute the E string.

 

Tom Fontana at theguitarlesson.com has a video (it’s in his free section) that teaches you how to learn chords. The exercise is simple for any chord in existence, and I wish I had found it ten years. Chords were the reason I never learned guitar. And I can relate, yes, once I figured out I can play them, learning guitar was suddenly easy.

Here is what you do:

1. Put your fingers on the chord shape.

2. Play the chord.

3. Play each individual string of the chord and make sure it sounds clean. If not, find out why not (usually a finger is touching a string or you are not applying enough pressure)

4. Release the chord, stretch your fingers, shake your hand

5. Repeat for 5 minutes

The hand shaking was the most important for me. It forces your hand to move out of position and remember how to get back.

Once you get the individual chords down, you can begin practicing chord changes the same way.

I think you have to register to watch the video, but here is the link anyways:

Guitar Chords – beginner guitar lesson #2

 

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[superblonde]

I think one key is to just do it several minutes a day, even better a couple times a day. Leave it longer than that and it takes forever..

In another Doug lesson he says not to use the thumb like he’s using. Keep the thumb in the middle of the neck, it’s much better in the long run. So again, no matter how many guitarists you see with thumb over the neck, don’t do that now (it will happen much much later).

Do it ridiculously slowly, like, 1 change every 30 seconds, might even be too fast, at the very start. The major goal seems to be this: arrange all the fingers into the shape first, in the air hovering above the strings. Then put those fingers to the strings (all at once). Then strum. Meanwhile the thumb is in the same spot as if it is glued in the center of the neck.

by the way when you get to the F chord, everyone is allowed to cry ;-D

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Igglepud]

Yes, I’d start working on barre chords now just so your fingers are strong enough when you need to play them. F took me about a month, not because it is complicated fingering but because my muscles were weak.

 

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[Sean]

SB
I like the idea of twice a day!

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[Igglepud]

Here is another fun tidbit (that I’m sure I’ll get flamed for): There are only three chords!

That isn’t really true, but for starting out you need to know three shapes: E or F, Em or Fm, B

1. E and Em are the same shape, the minor just doesn’t use your middle finger.

2. B is just a power chord, but you need to add another string.

3. Minor chords on the A string are the same shape as major chords on the E string.

Use those three shapes with a barre and you can play any (standard) major or minor chord on the E and A strings.

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[superblonde]

That’s a good point, I guess CAGED is basically about boiling down repetitively seen shapes to just a few commonly found fingerings (so, to those guys, there are ‘only 5’).

“there are only 3 chords” Hmm Isnt the ‘there’s a million songs with only 3 chords’ crowd talking about chords with the shapes, E (or Em or Am or A), C (or G or F), and D?

Anyway I think D is a candidate to add to your list in terms of repetitively found yet in a unique class of shapes.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Igglepud]

You can still get them elsewhere with barres, but C and D need to be added for a full repertoire. They make playing in an open position a lot easier. Plus, those shapes are required for the stuff that will make you cry when F isn’t a problem anymore. Eb can go straight to hell.

 

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[Sean]

Sounds like alot of challenges coming up. THE “D” Chord feel like home already. But that “C” ,it must be the fact the it is three different strings spread out across three different frets.

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[Sean]

For people who type. When you master changing chords, is it as easy as typing fast and accurate. Where you don’t even think about your fingers or the keyboard. Just what I’m thinking of writing? Because I’m still amazed of what an out of body experience typing is when I’m totally engrossed in something.

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[Igglepud]

That’s pretty much it. Play the chords a million times, then play the transitions a million times. Learning a bunch of covers helped me a lot. Now I can do stupid stuff like this:

 

Reap the rewards!

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[AlleyCatRocker1980s]

nice Dustin 🙂

Practicing Guitar

[Sean]

A true MASTERPIECE!

I Will never look at my stapler the same way again! Thanks for the advice. It is cool how you can just create a song when you can change chords well.

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[safetyblitz]

Even though a classical adjudicator would probably say that it’s “more correct” to place the thumb behind the neck while playing the open C chord, there’s not *really* any significant benefit to being strict about back-of-the-neck thumb placement when playing cowboy chords. For scale playing, there definitely are good ergonomic reasons for being a “stickler” for thumb placement, but for open chords? Not really. And when you’re first learning to play, you may find that lack of thumb strength makes it even *more* difficult to play cowboy chords with strict back-of-the-neck thumb placement. My suggestion is to get the chord the ring clean any way you can, and not stress too much about “rules” for where to place the thumb during cowboy chords.

[Sean]

Thanks, I’ll try both ways,and see which feels more comfortable.

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[Anonymous]

Hi Sean, here’s a couple of things for you to try.

I suppose you’re talking about open chords, but this serves for any chord change (I used this approach in jazz where we have some pretty maniac chord shapes and it has proved helpful).

First, you need to have a plan – how to change from one fingering to the next. If, at first, you try to do everything at the same time, all four fingers, is like four guys trying to go through one narrow door all the same time.. you know what happens. So you need to establish priorities. Once you have this settled, then practice, and in the future the change will happen automatically, with all fingers moving at once from one place to the next. Trying to do it all at first is a mistake. So here’s 2 things for you to try:

1) Practice moving just the 1st finger from its position on one chord to its position on the 2nd chord. Do it a few times, just to watch what that movement requires. Then repeat procedure with the 2nd finger, then with the third, then with the fourth (if needed). One finger at a time from chord to chord, just that. Then you may try this exercise with two fingers, which takes me to the next point………

2) When shaping a chord, always go from the outside to the inside. I’ll explain: go first with the fingers that are more distant from each other, and then go with the in-between fingers. The more distant fingers may be because of the number of strings they’re apart, or because the number of frets they’re apart – vertically or horizontally. The reason for this is that by placing first the “outside” fingers, that movement forces the hand into a shape, like a frame, where the other fingers will fall more naturally inside that shape.

 

Back to point 1)

By analyzing chord this way, one finger at a time, you’ll notice things that you might not if trying to do it all at once. Here’s an example. When changing from a D major chord to an A major chord (open chords) you’ll notice that the 3rd finger doesn’t leave the B string, it just slides from the 3rd to the 2nd fret. — or when going from A minor to C major, fingers 1 and 2 remain in place and it is just the 3rd finger that does the job.

 

To avoid any confusion – this is an initial procedure. an analytical procedure. When this part is done than the chord change will happen all at once.

Hope it helps, Sean!

 

 

 

[Sean]

I grasp the picture frame concept! Very cool. When I move from a D open chord to a C open chord I will concentrate on the 1st and 3rd fingers “the frame” and immediately drop in the 2nd. I like it! The single finger exercise sounds cool too. You are right- trying to move all the fingers at once they don’t land where they should.

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[Igglepud]

I had to work on that with a student tonight, and this approach worked well. Really forced him to look at the minimum movement he should make.

Also helped him find “anchors” for his chords. D was giving him trouble, so we just looked at the index and middle fingers. Once one of them was in place, the others just found where they were supposed to go.

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[Anonymous]

Very cool! 🙂

[Sean]

How cool is that!!!

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[MotleyCrue81]

My classical guitar teacher always stressed having the thumb sit behind the neck pressed against the middle of it. The C, D, E, G whatever all the open chords he wants the thumb right behind the neck. Just depends on if that applies to your purposes, you can do it either way. Sean, one thing to try with the C chord, is pay attention to the angle of the wrist and hand. The D chord is a lot easier because your hand and wrist will naturally want to angle that way. You kind of have to angle your hand the opposite way to make the C chord. So just practice angling the hand and then after a while your fingers will fall in the right places more easily. Chords take time, but once you get them totally down you can fly. Also, one thing to note that applies to mostly all chord strummers, when they’re strumming up and down and changing chords, a lot of times the open strings are ringing a little bit before the fingers completely get placed to make the chord. And that’s alright because it adds a little something to the sound of plain old chord strumming. When people really get good, the finger placement is so instantaneous that the player can choose whether or not they want to strum around with the open strings ringing for that split second before they completely place the fingers to make the chord. They can make the changes so exact that it almost sounds too precise. Many people prefer the sound of those open strings ringing for s split second over having the instantaneous chord change. Whichever way you want to do it just depends on what you’re playing. In Igglepud’s video, the open strings ring a little here and there, and that sounds good. It’s how the old chord strumming goes.

Bring hair metal back!

[Sean]

Last night. I worked on some of the ideas offered:
Super slow was the most difficult. My fingers were shakin. I stayed away from the suggestion of taking my hand completely off and shaking in out. This goes against what Doug is teaching in the lesson. Moving one finger at a time through the chord changes was very interesting I can see the benefit but I think that’s a little too advanced for me right now. I like the solid feel of the fingers moving as a unit that being said the picture frame idea of using the outside fingers and then the inside fingers following- was an eye-opener. The C chord got better instantly the middle finger just traveled along with the ring finger I didn’t even have to think about it, that was easily the most beneficial for me at my level. now I got up this morning and Brett mentions wrist angle and I grabbed the guitar and looked at it. This was fantastic too. As soon as I turned my wrist a little bit it made the chord change much easier. I never thought of my wrist as a swivel it can really change how my fingers approach the strings. Maybe this is good maybe bad. I will experiment. I really paid attention to where my thumb was going. Chord changes vs. The Pentatonic scale. The thumb traveled with the scales around the neck (maybe because I don’t have the longest fingers) but stayed in one general area on the cowboy chords. Between Doug’s lesson, everyone suggestions and support, last night’s practice was the best I’ve ever had.

THIS FORUM IS THE BEST!!!!

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[Igglepud]

I should have prefaced that if Doug says to do something, do it his way. The hand shaking thing is an independent exercise simply for learning chord shapes, nothing more. If it conflicts with your lesson, I’m glad you ignored it and had an awesome practice. That’s a GREAT feeling when things go the way you want.

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[Anonymous]

Igglepud wrote:

I should have prefaced that if Doug says to do something, do it his way. The hand shaking thing is an independent exercise simply for learning chord shapes, nothing more. If it conflicts with your lesson, I’m glad you ignored it and had an awesome practice. That’s a GREAT feeling when things go the way you want.

That hand shaking is a super exercise, glad you mentioned it!

It serves multiple purposes from relaxation to accuracy, to develop memory… etc. I use it with my violin students when they learn positions (other than 1st position) to hit a note right on the spot in the higher registers, in tune. If you leave the hand always down there’s some 50% of hitting a chord that is never practiced – the actual part of getting there and  hitting it!

[superblonde]

safetyblitz wrote:

Even though a classical adjudicator would probably say that it’s “more correct” to place the thumb behind the neck while playing the open C chord, there’s not *really* any significant benefit to being strict about back-of-the-neck thumb placement when playing cowboy chords. For scale playing, there definitely are good ergonomic reasons for being a “stickler” for thumb placement, but for open chords? Not really.

For several chords I found that “thumb behind neck” made my fingers take a proper angle to the fretboard. Otherwise especially on C chord, I would end up with slanty-fingers.

Let me see if I can find it..

Here it is. hmm too bad, the pics are no longer showing up on the old forum…?

https://www.bb-metalmethod.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19252

Kind of neat, that post was 2 yrs ago?

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[AlleyCatRocker1980s]

The general idea is when making Bar Chords, always keep the tip of the Thumb in the back of the Neck.

Now with simple CowBoy Chords, your Thumb can rest at the side of the Neck…but to not deaden any Strings!

Also the Thumb can be used for Muteing the Sixth String at times if called for.

There will be times,where the Barring Finger the tip of that Finger will Mute Strings as well.

An theres times,where other Fingers may be called to do that as well in the case of Muteing…depending on the type of Chord??

If your having trouble making Chords, Manufacture a Chord Chart write down your CowBoy Chords,an throw in some Bar Chords.

Each day, mix up the order in wich you have The Chords down on your Chart But mix things up as to not get bored…that way it keeps things fun

an interesting.  Practice them everyday,in a few weeks you will be well on your way!

Thing to remember,is to not get frustrated an to just have fun at this point!

After you’ve mastered all of those,just add more Chords  🙂    Also play sometimes Standing Up, & Sometimes Sitting..

Practicing Guitar

[Sean]

Ah the term mastering! I would love to put that with my guitar playing!!!

Tell me and I will forget ,show me and I'll remember, involve me and I'll understand

[Igglepud]

I noticed today that my thumb wraps around on C as well. It’s just not comfortable keeping it planted. I<span style=”line-height: 1.5;”>f I’m barring anything, it stays  right on the back of the neck.</span>

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[Anonymous]

I guess the thumb thing has a lot to do with how you hold your guitar, even with the length of the neck.

For instance, I use my guitar strapped very high, almost always sitting, with the guitar angled away of my body resting on my right leg. If I play an open C major chord with the thumb in the back of the neck my wrist will bend severely… while if place it on the low E side I have a straight arm and wrist. Personally, my concern is always on the wrist and never on the thumb. I try to have it straight whenever possible.

[Igglepud]

Guitars must be played at waist height or lower. It’s in the unwritten book of Metal Law.

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[safetyblitz]

Igglepud wrote:

Guitars must be played at waist height or lower. It’s in the unwritten book of Metal Law.

Tom Morello and Rusty Cooley laugh at the rules.

[Igglepud]

I forgot about Morello. He actually uses good posture, even live.

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[Doug Marks]

I am really late to this topic.  Sorry.  Begin by concentrating on your left hand.  Initially, don’t even bother strumming.  Just practice changing chord shapes.  I try to hit all notes in the chord at the same time.  As someone mentioned, part of the reason I use my thumb is to mute the sixth string.  I also learned to play guitar in the Hendrix era.  Hendrix used his thumb to fret notes on the sixth string.  So, it’s a habit for me.  Classical training demands the thumb to be in the center of the neck.  From my experience, that means that you have a poor vibrato.  Blues vibrato requires the leverage gained by the thumb over the neck.

Metal Method Guitar Instructor

[Author]

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