Now that you've completed Lesson 5 of the JustinGuitar Beginner's Course, you can work on perfecting the techniques you've learned. Here's the practice schedule.
View the full lesson at Module 5 Practice | JustinGuitar
I was wondering . With the c chord ,justin teaches using fingers 3,2 and 1 muting the low e but should we start learning it using 4 fingers with finger 3 on the low e or is that coming in a later video?
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Welcome to the forum Jason
Technicality the four finger C chord is a C/G and is only used with an alternating base line
Country songs use it quite often but it’s not a common chord.
Also using 4 fingers to play the C chord you won’t be able to play more common chords
Like C7, Cadd9 or do embellishments with you pinky.
If you plan on playing a lot of old country or blue grass it would be worth while learning but
as a separate chord C/G all this mean is a C chord with a G in the bass.
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Thx gor the help ,i appreciate it ",
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Hello @neonguitarist and welcome to the Community.
That chord formation is coming up in grade 2 module 14: Essential Slash Chords | JustinGuitar.com
Hope that helps.
Cheers 
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Official Guide & Approved Teacher
After many months of playing the C chord, I’m still not happy with my progress, and have decided to re-visit and do a deep dive for improvement.
I mute the bass E string with the tip of my ring finger, but that makes it harder to fret the root C note (A string, 3rd fret). It often doesn’t ring clearly. And I sometimes find I’m accidentally muting other strings as well.
I suspect part of the problem is that my guitar (entry level Martin) has somewhat wider string spacing, but haven’t measured.
So, my questions:
-
I’m considering switching to muting with my thumb. Pretty sure I’ve seen people do this in videos…maybe even Justin. But this will be a big change for me - what are the pros and cons?
-
In general, when re-visiting a chord you already know, what are good exercises to unlearn the old habits, and learn the new - presumably better - habits?
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I always use ring finger to mute and sometimes thumb is in there as well - eg if I’ve been muting with the thumb for D or Am.
I have found that when muting with the thumb and using the pinky on other strings (eg for C7 or on high E) it’s harder to get all strings to ring out correctly. Probably because my hand is wrapped around the neck more. But it’s still usually ok.
I’m not aware of any dramas using the thumb to mute other than that it’s usually a bit harder.
Maybe try to learn both well - try to get the ring finger muting working as well? As there are times / chords it’s easier to mute with the ring finger.
I recently have been retraining some chords and I’ve been going back to basics. Chord perfect & PFC. Seems to work to retrain the neurons.
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For me, it’s much easier to mute the 6th string on a C chord with my thumb. The way I grip the chord, my thumb is pretty much in position and I barely have to move it to mute the 6th string. If your thumb is naturally more behind the neck when you finger the chord, it will requirement a bigger adjustment to mute with the thumb.
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Can’t think of any downsides while using either method. I would say once you become confident with playing C chord (and that applies everywhere) you feel you can play around more with your fingers and enhance some techniques. So I reckon once it sits in your brain comfy you will be able to sort out ring finger muting as well 
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I struggled to get the low-E muted reliably with my ring finger too, so when Justin introduced the idea of beginning to “play-around” with thumb muting in Grade 2 Module 14, I decided to give it a go.
The good news: Thumb muting is a really handy skill to have, especially if you want to play Rock and/or Blues songs.
The bad news: You basically have to re-learn every chord grip you use it on because your fingers are coming at the strings at a much different angle now that your thumb isn’t on the back of the neck.
I added a “chord-perfect” practice segment to my practice routine to get the C-with-thumb-mute chord grip under my fingers. It took a month or 2 to start feeling comfortable with it, but now I also use it for C, Am, D/A, Dm/A, F/C and Fmaj7/C. I’ve also started using the thumb to fret the low-E for D/F#, which sounds really good in place of a D in many circumstances.
In short, it’s a good fix for your problem, but it’s not a quick-fix for your problem.
Take Care,
Ed
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@Tbushell
Muting the low E string with the thumb on a C chord is one of the easier steps towards bringing your thumb up from behind the back of the neck and higher so that it can be used for such purposes. It doesn’t take much to raise your hand a little and gently touch the E string. You do not have to hang your thumb over too much at all.
Being able to play a clean and clear root note on the 5th string is all important so work at making that possible for yourself.
Hope that helps.
Cheers 
| Richard_close2u | Community Moderator, Official Guide, JustinGuitar Approved Teacher
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Hello guys 
At this moment I can practice with a metronome but I always have a hard time to know how much bpm to set. Is it needed that I know this by now or is it something that comes along the way?
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Hello @Willfarrapo and welcome to the community.
What practice elements are you using a metronome to support?
If songs, for example, as slow as you need to play without errors and pausing between chord changes and as fast as you can with the same considerations.
There is no one fixed bpm that serves all purposes.
Not much help but I hope it answers some of your question.
Come back with more if you need.
Cheers
| Richard_close2u | Community Moderator, Official Guide, JustinGuitar Approved Teacher
It’s interesting that Justin says strumming is considered the most difficult part of guitar playing. I find it much harder to play sequences of individual notes - I struggle to remember the sequence, and often fret or play the wrong string (sometimes fretting one string and playing another!). I feel much more comfortable thrashing away at a chord sequence. Is it just me?
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I think this varies a lot from player to player.
In my case, strumming hand learning was always easier than fretting hand…especially WRT chords. But I could pick out melodies more easily than I could fret chords.
So I wonder if Justin means that strumming is the hardest part of guitar playing for for him.
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I think Justin said strumming is generally considered the hardest part, so he didn’t mean himself in particular.
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Have not seen the video, so that makes sense. Maybe many teachers have found that the majority of students struggle more with strumming.
In any case, it does not surprise me at all that there are some students who find strumming easier.
So no, it’s not just you
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That’s an interesting question and comment @GrahamH66
For me, fundamentally, the guitar is a rhythm instrument with the further and obvious advantages of having harmonic (chords) and melodic (notes) qualities too.
On occasions I have happily played muted percussive rhythm patterns for ages. Lightly touch (not press) all strings, to deaden the sound and just strum away with a whole range of rhythm / strumming patterns. I find it addictive and almost hypnotic to get sucked in to just getting grooves and being groovy (man!). 
When you talk of finding it easy to play chord sequences are you following particular strumming patterns? Changing them? Playing random strumming?
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Sometimes I’m following particular patterns, sometimes just letting rip and playing whichever chords feel right at the time. It’s all fairly simple stuff, though (usually with no more than three chords in the sequence, and they’re all quite easy ones to play), as I’m a bit of a newbie.
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any other songs ? really dont like any of the one that are being offered here
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