Hi Jocelyn,
Welcome , and I hope to see you often and especially to hear you… Many people expect that everyone who has a musical instrument in their hands will immediately get a nice tune out of it and otherwise you have no talent so you beter stop in their eyes (all too often are that parents who say that for different reasons )…good of you that you continue now …there is a Topic here where most people say hello and where the other community members say hello quickly get an impression of who you are… don’t feel obligated,… but it is fun and saves you a lot of questions. https://community.justinguitar.com/c/community-hub/introduce-yourself/263
I wish you a fantastic learning curve and above all a lot of fun,
Greetings,Rogier
And I thought my fingers were weird… …I also still struggle but it gets better every day…
I practice about 10-20 minutes max and maybe twice a day if i feel like it…allthough pretty impatient, I hear better chords(sometimes…
Wish I’d thought to look on the forum before about the 'D’readed D chord! I’m eight weeks in now and although my hit rate for a clean sound is probably 90%+ it still takes WAY too long to position my fingers. I managed to get to 38 A/D changes in a minute (NOT perfectly) so moved on to the second module and the E chord which is fine, but there’s no point going further until I’m much better. At the moment my time with the guitar in my hands is more of an exercise in mindfulness than music.
Hello @MsJocko and welcome to the Community.
Another inspiring post - get those chords working and the next thing … you’ll be playing songs and making music!
Cheers
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Moderator, Guide & Approved Teacher
To improve the D chord formation, and transition to A or E chords (for example), try this:
Start with D …
Hold your fingers near to but not touching the strings.
Touch the fingers where the chord is but do not press.
Once you have all fingers touching at the correct place - make micro adjustments if it looks / feels wrong - then press them down.
Do not strum - this is a fretting hand exercise only.
Release the pressure after a few seconds but keep touching the strings.
Then move your hand away from the strings by a small amount - all fingers away.
Repeat the process for one minute.
Choose the other chord …
Hold your fingers near to but not touching the strings.
Touch the fingers where the chord is but do not press.
Once you have all fingers touching at the correct place then press them down.
Do not strum - this is a fretting hand exercise only.
Release the pressure after a few seconds but keep touching the strings.
Then move your hand away from the strings by a small amount. All fingers away.
Repeat the process for one minute.
Then, to improve changes to and from the D and E or D and A chords, repeat the above process with one alteration. After the final step of lifting all fingers away, the next move would be over to the chord that you are changing to. Once that chord has been done and fingers are lifted away, go back to the first chord of the pair.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Make this exercise last a few minutes.
1 minute - D alone
1 minute - A alone
1 minute - D and A
1 minute - E alone
1 minute - D and E
Combine this exercise with One Minute Changes and Chord Perfect to give you a variety of drills for improving chord formation and chord changes.
Hope that helps.
Cheers
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Official Guide & Approved Teacher
@Richard_close2u ‘s exercise above is one of the best exercises you can do as well as Justin’s chord perfect and one minute changes.
I would add to it - and interesting to see what Richard thinks about this - when changing between chords, don’t let your fingers go anywhere but where you want them to go. From where they are to where you want them. It’s hard at first because they want to fly off everywhere but by doing it really really slowly and sometimes talking to them (!!) you can get them under control and it becomes easier and faster with practice.
@BurnsRhythm I like the idea of talking to your hands haha
And yes, switching it around so as not to move your hands away (when going between more than one chord) I can see as a valuable variation.
Cheers Richard
I am just wondering why the beginner course begins with the D chord. There are easier chords to play with just two fingers, such as E minor. I am really struggling with this chord, which seems to be denting my confidence.
I don’t want to dissuade anyone from learning the regular D chord, but something I frequently do is substitute an open D7 for the open D chord. I’m not suggesting a D7 is easier to play than a regular D, but it is MUCH easier to change from a D7 to an Am, C and Fmaj7 (i.e. any chord where the index finger is on the first fret-second string).
I believe the difference in sound between the D and D7 isn’t obvious enough to insist on one or the other in most cases. I’m sure there are situations where the difference warrants using the correct chord, but I’ve yet to find one. Maybe my ears are crap!
However the regular D chord is good for when you want to spice things up by adding in a Dsus2 or Dsus4.
I guess the D is taught first by Justin because the anchor finger technique makes D-A-E changes quite easy and a heap of songs use those chords.
@jacksprat If one doesn’t start to learn to differentiate between the sound of D and D7 (or any other variations), they’ll have a harder time doing it later on. IMO, the tonal difference between major and dominant 7 chords is a very obvious one, almost like a major/minor change.
Can you learn to differentiate the difference between two chords though? To me they sound very similar. I don’t think I can convince myself they sound substantially different. I have some industrial hearing damage. Perhaps that’s it?
Try to change between the two chords, but not too quickly, let them ring out a bit. You’ll just have to use your pinky to play the D major and lift it up for the D7 so it’s not very difficult.
Alternatively, try to play the D7 with the root note on the 5th string. This grip will be x5453x, i.e. the open C7 grip moved up a tone. Maybe the difference will be more apparent there.
Is it just me, or does the D chord sound stop completely as soon as you let off the strings to move to another chord? And another thing, I get a slight pitch change when my fingers leave the strings for just a fraction of second too. I try to raise my fingers straight off but I still get a pitch change, and then immediately the sound stops completely. Am I doing something wrong?
I tried this out to see what you mean. When I lift my fingers from a D, the strings continue to ring gently in the open position. Same as all chords. So that could be the pitch change you’re hearing.
They do continue to ring though, same as other chords. Is something on your guitar muting them, I wonder?
I’m not sure. I do notice, and I noticed it from the time I learned it, that the D chord behaves these two ways for. I noticed on one of Nitsuj’s early practice videos that the pitch changed happened too, but its not common to hear him play a D chord without a music track in the subsequent modules so as to see if it was bad form that he improved with practice.
I have the same issue. I keep thinking how Justin says, “Practice makes permanent”. For the D chord I can’t seem to get all three fingers placed on the strings at the same time. So I’m hoping that my struggle in finger placement is not becoming “permanent”…yikes! I appreciate the exercise that Richard posted below and will give that a go.
Happy to report that several weeks on I am now much better with the D chord. To be honest, switching back and forth between A, D, E, Em, Dm and now Am is about all I do. For added fun, I’m trying very hard to learn the chords by feel now too as craning my neck to see my fingers moving started giving me a stiff neck. My own issue with D initially was trying to form the chord with my fingers completely vertical (which Justin does not advocate, as I discovered when I rewatched the video). My ring and little fingers have a pronounced curve and although stretching might lessen the effect over time I have no choice but to come in at an angle. Scales will be a mountain to climb!
)…good of you that you continue now 
…there is a Topic here where most people say hello and where the other community members say hello quickly get an impression of who you are… don’t feel obligated,… but it is fun and saves you a lot of questions.
…I also still struggle but it gets better every day…
