Nitsuj's final practice session in Grade 1 - he passes today :)
View the full lesson at Nitsuj Module 7 - Practice 10 | JustinGuitar
I think the Chord Perfect changes are great…I independently started doing them and find it helpful.
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It’s kinda awesome (and endearing) to see Justin so happy for passing his grade 1. 
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Seeing Nitsuj in action for the first time…this quite helpful.
Thanks Justin (once again)
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Great effort Nitsuj. Good to be able to compare your standard to my own in terms of whether I’m good enough to pass grade 1.
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Hello @Kej27 and welcome to the Community.
It’s great that you’re gaining insight from watching a fellow beginner and helping shape context for your own learning.
Cheers 
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Moderator, Guide & Approved Teacher
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I cannot express how much watch Nitsuj’s struggles has helped me. Really looking forward to continuing the journey with him.
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Hey I’m hoping you still read comments on old videos, I’m really struggling to fit the chord change from G to EM, it’s not the speed but the timing or rhythm of it whilst keeping a good strumming pattern. I wonder if other beginners are struggling as hard as I am. Hope to hear from you soon and thanks for this amazing content!
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Hello Garth and welcome to the community.
It may be that you need to strip everything right back to basics and build again.
One strum per bar, while counting our loud (and hopefully tapping a foot, nodding your head etc).
Strum once on the G chord at the count of 1, count all four beats, 1 2 3 4.
Play as a loop not just two bars then stop.
Your aim is to be on the next chord in time for the next count of 1.
Your complementary aim is to not make the change and move to the next chord until after you have counted 4.
Do this at several bpms, start at say 60bpm, nudge up in increments until you are comfortable about 100bpm or even faster if it is going well.
Then start to strum a Down strum on all four beats and again count out loud and aim to make a chord change to land on the next chord in time for the count of 1.
Play in a loop as above.
Then continue strumming on the beats and repeat the process above but change how you count out loud. Start to say out loud: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & still strumming just on the 1 2 3 4.
I hope that helps.
Cheers
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Official Guide, Approved Teacher & Moderator
Hey thanks for the reply, am I supposed to strum blue on each tick I hear from the metronome?
If the song app has
1 2 3 4 G
1 2 3 4 EM
then
if I must change during the bar from G to EM, do i play EM on down strum beat 2 or 3 ? or between the 2 and 3?
Thanks for your reply
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@Garth123, @Richard_close2u has given some very useful, detailed advice…as usual.
A couple of other things you could try:
-
Keep your strumming hand moving…strum in the air, just missing the strings on beats 2, 3, and 4. Justin talks about this in one of his videos, though I can’t remember which one. For me at least, that works better than foot tapping.
-
If going from 1 downstrum to 4 downstrums is too big a jump, you can work up to it. Do 2 downs for a while, then 3, then 4. But keep your strumming hand moving to the beat.
The most important thing is to get a solid strum on the “1” for every chord change, with all your fretting fingers in place. If that’s off, that’s what the listener will notice. The other strums can be a bit muted or sloppy, and it won’t be as noticeable.
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Thanks but there is a song from the song app im trying to learn and the chords change from G to EM during the bar, so finding which beat to change on is very awkward.
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@Garth123, here’s a non-Justin video that has helped some of us when we couldn’t quite get things to work.
I notice that he doesn’t keep his strumming hand moving in the exercises, so - contrary to what I suggested above - maybe add that in later.
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Nitsuj Module 7 - Practice 10 | JustinGuitar.com The song and the specific mid-bar changes at 9:40 in the video I linked
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The song is This Year’s Love by David Gray.
You need to be careful with the rhythm, counting and strumming as the song is not in 4/4 time.
It is NOT
1 2 3 4 or even 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
The song is in 6/8 time.
You need to count 1 2 3 4 5 6 and accent (emphasise) the counts of 1 and 4.
When you have two chords in a bar like G to Em in this song, then each typically get half a bar.
You play G for the counts of 1 2 3 then you switch to Em and play it for the counts of 4 5 6.
You can also add in upstrums if you wish - my recommendation to begin would be just the upstrums before the accented beats - those that come after 3 and 6.
I hope that helps.
Cheers
RIchard
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@Richard_close2u if your talking about the song Garth posted of nitsuj playing with the app It’s Elanor Rigby
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Rick, I’m picking up on this post by Garth. …
Nitsuj is playing This Year’s Love at that time stamp.
My apologies Richard I watched the video in the lesson post but not all the way through.
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