With one minute changes, I’ve managed to get to 60 with most chords (including the F barre chord I already knew before starting the course), but they’re not perfect, I’m doing it for speed, not perfect sound…I searched the forum to find out when I needed to be getting perfect sound from each chord and came across PFCs but I think that’s later in the course.
If I can do 60 changes a minute, getting the fingers correct, if not perfectly sounding, I can do most chord placements with my eyes closed, should I move on to PFCs to work on the sound as speed isn’t so much of an issue anymore?
This ^^^
One for speed one for purity. When you start playing songs no one will appreciate sloppy chords no matter how fast they are. Quality first speed second. Practice both.
To me it’s like practicing everything else. Practice slowly and accurately, gradually increasing speed. Practice sloppy, play sloppy. Practice makes permanent. So Perfect Fast Changes is the way to go is my opinion for what it’s worth especially if the OP is already playing chords taught after G1.
The actual answer is one has to do both. Two different skills and each are good to possess. Practicing accurately alone will not increase speed. Something of a myth that playing “sloppy” for a few moments will make your inaccuracies permanent. Brain has to learn what it feels like to physically move faster in order to go faster. (And I’m not suggesting playing as fast as you can the whole time you practice.)
Many examples in other sports (playing guitar is an athletic activity as well). In golf, everyone wants to hit accurate shots and hit the ball far. In order to increase speed, the club has to be swung faster. Period. It requires different training than working on other typical golf mechanics. In a golf practice session, the player may take a dozen swings at full max speed without regard to where the ball goes. In running, an athlete that specializes in the mile distance, will work on 100-200 meter sprints to develop speed even though there is no possibility of maintaining that for a full mile. The bottom line is if you always train slow, you will always be slow.
There’s also one other component - endurance. I find (and I’m sure others do as well) that making accurate timed chord changes might go well for the first part of a timed period, but then become ragged towards the end. This isn’t a function of speed or technical accuracy, but is related to limited endurance. This requires similar training. How to play some rhythm guitar repetition for 3-5 minutes without losing focus or having your fingers fall off.
That’s where you increase the tempo gradually and reduce the tempo when your changes go wonky. Then Wash, rinse and repeat. No different from learning to play a song.
PFC’s aren’t about practicing slowly. ( the clue is in the name - Perfect FAST Changes ).
The idea is to slow down from what you can do in OMC in order to fret the chords correctly and build up the speed while keeping them correct.
OMC’s are initially a repetitive way of training the fingers to form the chords quickly. Once you can do around 60 a minute the exercise has done it’s job and there isn’t much point in trying to go faster if the chords are sloppy. Much better to switch to PFC to clean the chords up and the speed will once again start to increase. You will eventually be able to go well over 60 with PFC
Thank you for the replies, you’ve confirmed what I thought was needed.
OMCs have allowed me to get to a point where if I’ve got my eyes closed, I can form mostly perfect chords without looking at the fretboard, but, they’re not totally perfect so the PFCs now means I can fine tune it.
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