A better day today. I practiced forming the D chord 10 times. Managed to do that mixed in with some failed attempts.
Found the A chord harder. Managed to do 5 (ish) before it got painful . Found clearing the 1st / E string to prevent buzzing / muting difficult.
Is it advisable to practice chord changes even if you aren’t consistently playing the chords as they are intended? The fast changes exercise looks to be more about building muscle memory than playing a “good” chord, so would add some variety while I’m developing the technique on the chords.
The last thing you want to do is build sloppy chord changes into your muscle memory. You play like you practice. If you practice sloppy chord changes you play sloppy chord changes. Get the chord perfect exercise down before you start OMC. Your chords don’t need to be perfect but they shouldn’t be sloppy.
It’s a lot easier to learn it right the first time than have to try and break bad habits later.
Another thing most beginners do is press way to hard on the strings. Take any note in a chord and gently place your finger on it. Pluck the string and gently press harder until the string rings out cleanly. That is all the pressure you need to fret the strings.
When you press to hard you flatten your finger tips out which in turn mutes the string next to it. It will get easier when your calluses start to form.
Haha truth be told, I was exactly the same! (Or perhaps worse.) Before picking up the guitar, I actually had a rather low opinion of people who only strummed chords on the guitar (as opposed to lead or fancy / improvised rhythm parts). As far as musician-ship was concerned, I rated them below that of the alto recorder. Like, how hard can it be to repetitively strum a bunch of chords? How much more boring can you possibly get?
That was, until I picked up the guitar for the first time 2.5 months ago. Like you, I immediately wondered, how does anyone manage to learn to play the guitar at all? How many years did they take to be able to fluently deploy the D chord?
The good news is, you’ll surprise yourself how fast you can get used to the mechanics of strumming chords (and other aspects of guitar playing). It feels to me a bit like watching a kettle boil; each individual practice session doesn’t seem to push you much further ahead, but in a few weeks time you’ll be surprised at how far you’ve come.
Welcome. Good for you for taking that scary first step and taking up the guitar. Take your time, enjoy the experience and build a solid foundation. Remember that all guitarists started where you are and have likely felt the same frustrations. I watch the Nitsuj videos and see that learning this new skill IS challenging.
Justin is a fabulous teacher. You will learn a lot following his lessons.
@barny I find the physicality of forming the hand and finger shapes required to be the most difficult. Fingers tips are painful but I can live with that
One of Justin’s sayings is "Practice makes PERMANENT…
If you consistently practice chords (or anything I suppose) in a manner that is “wrong” it will stick & become a habit that you’ll have to break eventually.
That being said, in Grade 1, Justing also emphasizes that we’re all physically different & sometimes you may have to “modify” the technique he’s demonstrating a bit to what works for you.
Your first chords are very difficult to get “under the fingers” but they’ll come eventually - A & D aren’t particularly hard chords - but they’re new to you & your fretting hand. What you say about muscle memory is true, the more you place your fingers in certain places, the easier doing it next time becomes. Again, this is why “Perfect Practice” is critically important, especially at your stage.
Out of curiosity, what do you mean by “you aren’t consistently playing the chords as they are intended”? Is it about finger placement or the actual notes you play?
As others have mentioned, these exercises are the foundations of a very big part of guitar playing, especially if you will want to focus on strumming and rhythm playing. If you are practicing the open A chord, it’s natural that the grip will feel awkward at first but if you start slowly and make each attempt as perfect as you can (following Justin’s demonstrations), chances are that the chord will ring out clearly and the finger placement will become easier in a relatively short time.
However, if you practice so sloppily that you actually play a different chord than intended, let’s say, an Asus4 instead of A because you somehow fret the 2nd string at the 3rd fret instead of the 2nd fret, then you will be heading for trouble down the road. You will not practice playing and recognizing the nature (major, minor, sus, etc) of the particular chord you are supposed to be playing and later on it’s much more difficult to unlearn incorrect things and relearn them properly.
So be patient and practice the chords as perfectly as you can. Before you are definitely familiar with the grips and where your fingers are supposed to be placed, I wouldn’t worry about the one-minute changes.
Thanks @Jozsef. I’ve been working hard at finger placement using Justin’s videos for A and D chords. My finger placement for D chord is improving (dexterity) and I’m getting a more consistent ring from each string. Not always, but some of the time after I’ve gone through the finger placement checks.
For A chord I have used the same approach but have just not been able to get, particularly string 1 / E, to ring out at all. I can see that in most cases finger 3 is touching string 1 / E and when I try to adjust that my finger 1 palm / knuckle seems to be touching it (it maybe touching it anyway, it’s difficult to see).
That would lead to trying to arch the fingers and hand more, but I’m not sure if that is physically an option or I just don’t have the suppleness / dexterity at the moment and need to practise more.
This sounds like you may be resting the guitar neck in the palm of your hand or possibly on the inside knuckle of the index finger. You should position your hand so there is a fair amount of space between the neck and your palm.
Basically, your fretting hand should only be touching the neck with the pad of the thumb on the back and the tips of the fingers on the fretboard.
@jjw thank you. Not sure my hands are big enough to do that but will give it a try. Looks much better positioning with more space than I have though hand size is definitely a factor for me here
I barely get any clearance under the neck sometimes and depending on what I’m doing sometimes the neck does rest slightly on my hand at the base of the first finger. I try to keep that slight gap but sometimes it just fits better if I let it touch. I would suggest trying hard to keep the gap but not stress too much if it touches. The only alternative I’ve found is to bend the wrist, which I really really try to avoid, so I choose the lesser of two evils.
Good points from @artax_2. Just to be clear, my suggestion about keeping the gap between the neck and the palm was specifically for the A chord and @tweim1’s problem of muting the 1st string. For other chords, I find that I do touch the guitar neck with my palm or the inside of my 1st knuckle. Every chord is different and requires some experimentation in the exact position of the hand and wrist.
Hi, Toni, you have all the help and advice above but I would like to add I am in the same position as you not with the guitar but with hands I have tiny hands and short fingers and I remember asking the same questions as you years ago, I didn’t have what we have now ie the community or internet so I was at a loss until one day a guitar teacher was the same as us, we do take the advice but rest assure in time your hands will find there own way of getting around playing I don’t even think about it now, in fact sometimes a bonus smaller and faster soldier on you will get there cheers Hec
. Found clearing the 1st / E string to prevent buzzing / muting difficult.
