You keep bringing up piano like it’s something special. when the guitar is 10 time harder
to master than the piano. How do I know 50 years of playing guitar, mandolin and some piano.
In one of your other posts you said you could teach someone how to play chord on a piano in
less than 5 minute. I agree the piano is probably the easiest instrument to learn on.
Yes there are correct ways of playing the guitar but it’s not the same for everyone. You need to
find what works best for you. Forcing your wrist forward can do permanent damage to your
wrist and hand.
If you can play the chord and all the strings ring out without muting of strings and without pain
your doing it right.
James Taylor is a great guitar player, does everything wrong according to most guitar teachers.
Playing guitar should be fun not painful or frustrating. Yes your finger will be sore until the get
calluses and learning chord is hard. It’s more important to have clean note and no pain than
it is to play the so called correct way.
This is why so many people quit. They think it’s easy and a lot of teacher pressure the so
called correct way, which is harder than it need to be and causes pain.
It’s definitely nothing special. It’s just that I have a lot of experience with playing the piano. I guess that’s why it’s the only thing I can compare playing the guitar to.
I’ve never met a pianist who agrees with this except my sister who plays the flute, Clarinet,
accordion, piano and guitar. She agrees of all those instruments the piano and accordian
are the easiest to learn.
How long did it take you to learn the D major chord on the piano?
I can’t really answer that. I started with classical piano lessons – and that’s not about chords at all. Probably like classical guitar lessons. I guess I started looking at chords and accompanying songs and such things about 15 years later. So you could say: it took me 15 years.
I also played clarinet and saxophone for some years in my youth. It’s hard for me to compare the difficulty with the piano. I’d say, learning clarinet or saxophone is certainly different than learning piano. But not necessarily harder. Guitar is definitely very different and much harder. I just didn’t expect this at all. Admittedly, I’ve never asked a guitarist about it either.
I’m struggling with the D chord. The E string is always muted because I can’t seem to keep 2nd finger pressed hard enough as well as press with 3rd finger on B string. It just lifts off all on its own! Or if I can press enough with 2nd finger, 3rd finger is catching on the E string and its still muted. Grrrr! I shall keep trying, occasionally I do it, so at least I know its physically possible for me!
I guess it’s all about practice, practice, practice, …
I’ve struggled with the D chord a lot. After about 2 weeks of practice I can get it 99.9 % clean in the Chord Perfect exercise. And also in the OMC and when playing to songs it got much better. There it is 80-90 % clean now, I’d say. I only notice that it “degrades” a bit after some time (15-20 minutes of playing). I guess the fingers in my left hand are just not strong enough yet to play it clean for longer periods of time.
So don’t give up. I’m sure it will get better!
What I also notice: when I change A → D I just can’t get the 2nd and 3rd fingers to move at the same time. It’s always one after the other. With D → A I can move the fingers at the same time.
Also needs more practice, I guess.
thank you. It’s still far from perfect
I tried to improve my hand and finger position (and I’m not really sure about it; I think I’m still not 100 % there yet). I guess it’s mostly about practice, getting it into the “muscle memory”. As I said, changing to D is still a bit weird.
No, I wasn’t able to do a practice session with my friend yet. I’m at my mum’s at the moment because tomorrow it’s her 70th birthday. But I brought the guitar so that I can still practice a bit every day. I hope I can have a look together with my friend next week or the week after.
thanks for asking. I guess it’s okay-ish now. In the Chord Perfect exercise it sounds clean almost every time. And also the A-D changes work good and sound clean in most of the cases.
But when I progressed to module 2 and added the E chord, my A-D changes got a little worse. And I find the E-D changes really difficult, probably because the fingers of the left hand have to move so much.
To be honest, I wasn’t really practicing for the last 1 1/2 weeks. I had a gastrointestinal infection (no Covid, after all ) and I didn’t really feel like playing the guitar. That’s why I also couldn’t do the practice session with my friend yet (we had planned it for the day after the infection started ). So I guess I have to start practicing again when I’m feeling well and then the E chord and the E-D changes will hopefully improve.
Sorry to hear about the illness Oliver. Hopefully, sticking to the routines and the practice you will overcome these obstacles. They are very common and we all had to break through barriers to get to a next level.
Keep at it.
Cheers
| Richard_close2u | Community Moderator, Official Guide, JustinGuitar Approved Teacher
I’m an absolute beginner as well and also struggling with the D cord. My fingers seem to have a mind of their own and I’ve got the exact same problem as you! Funny. I think we just have to push through! As I’m a little bit older my fingers are stiff and need to get used to this strange way of using them I guess. But I think if other people can learn this, so can we!! Hang in there, and maybe we can both post our progress in a while?
Hi David,
Welcome, and the thinner the strings, the deeper they can press into your fingers, but you also bring/press them out of tune a bit easier…whether you learn the D or any chord easier I don’t think so…good luck with this one…it gets easier every day as you keep practicing…
Greetings,Rogier
9-42 on a Fender style guitar is a very popular choice.
Fender style guitars have a longer scale length than Gibson style etc which means that the strings, in standard tuning, are at a greater tension.
Reducing the gauge is one way of reducing the tension.
You do need to be aware of finger pressure and not pressing too hard - which can make your notes and chords go slightly sharp.
When it comes to learning string bending (somewhat further down the line) lighter gauge will help for sure.
Cheers
| Richard_close2u | Community Moderator, Official Guide, JustinGuitar Approved Teacher
Hello @Monique55 and welcome to the community.
What a positive first post.
Keep at it.
Cheers
| Richard_close2u | Community Moderator, Official Guide, JustinGuitar Approved Teacher
Hi, like many of you, I am a beginner. I picked up the guitar after my boyfriend was having some frustrations…I thought maybe I could help him out. I got hooked. I was following along his Hal Leonard book and doing well with notes, then came G7 and C chords… My boyfriend was familiar with Justin and suggested I look at the website. And here I am.
I started with the first lesson of D chord and then for variety learnt the A chord but neither were consistently sounding correct. I spent some time with finger pressure on the individual strings for each chord. I worked on combinations of 2 of the fingers on strings for the chords and YES, I was getting a bit frustrated. I sat with my fingers hovering over all three strings without playing. Perseverance paid off when I picked up the guitar this morning and beautiful sounding D and A chords came forth. I would say that 70% of my D’s are sounding great, 65% of my A’s. All guitarists had to go through what we are experiencing.
Don’t give up.
As a side note…I was told as a child I wasn’t musical and I am glad to be proving that incorrect. If you don’t try, you won’t succeed.
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…
). So I guess I have to start practicing again when I’m feeling well and then the E chord and the E-D changes will hopefully improve.
… good luck and above all have fun
)…good of you that you continue now 
…I also still struggle but it gets better every day…