Hello Truong and welcome to our community 
To answer your question, yes. You will be needing to use your little finger for embellishments a little further into your guitar adventure.
Why don’t you pop on over to here and introduce yourself.
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I’m just finishing up grade 1 and starting grade 2. I am really struggling with changing to the C chord. I have been using one minute changes and now perfect changes. I hit around 30 but just seem to be stuck there. Should I just keep up the one minute changes or is there something else that would help? Can,t seem to get my fingers to move at the same time like in air changes Any helpful hints please. Thanks
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@mdrainwater welcome to the forum Michael.
Try this exercise. Fret the C chord strum it then lift your fingers off the strings but don’t move your hand, re fret the chord again. Once you can play the C chord repeatedly landing all fingers do the same thing but remove your hand from the fret board the repeat the chord. Kind of like doing the one minute changes but with just one chord.
When that becomes easy fret the chord the remove your hand and touch your knee repeat chord. Try forming the chord in the air so you can place all your fingers down at once.
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Thanks. Will give it a try
Michael,
I have used Rick’s @stitch suggested technique & it definitely does help! I found it a bit frustrating at first because for me it took quite a while for my fingers to comply with what my brain was telling them!!! After a few days though, the C chord changes became much more natural… oh, don’t stop your OMC’s - just use both in conjunction with each other!
Good Luck!!!
Tod
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@mdrainwater
Hello Michael, congratulations on your grade 1 progress and welcome to the community.
Given your issues I would say to spend a little more time consolidating Grade 1 before you move on, especially learn and play songs that contain C major and work on that chord formation and progressions changing to and from it.
To improve the C chord formation, try this:
- Hold your fingers near to but not touching the strings.
- Touch the fingers where the chord is but do not press.
- Once you have all three touching at the correct place then press them down.
- Do not strum - this is a fretting hand exercise only.
- Release the pressure after a few seconds but keep touching the strings.
- Then move your hand away from the strings by a small amount. All fingers away.
- Repeat the process.
Then, to improve changes to and from the C major chord and other commonly grouped chords, repeat the above process with one alteration. After the final step of lifting all fingers away, the next cycle would be over the chord that you are changing to. Once that chord has been done and fingers are lifted away, go back to the first chord of the pair.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Make this exercise last about five minutes.
1 minute - C alone
1 minute - C & Am
1 minute - C and G
1 minute - C and D
1 minute - C alone
Practice daily and within a week you will be smashing it!
Cheers
Richard
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Once you start nailing this exercise almost 100% of the time, I found it helpful to do a variation where I’d fret the chord, strum, then remove the fretting hand and tap my lap, then fret again.
After a while moved to doing it just by feel, without looking at the scale. This helped me with some tricky chords on earlier stages.
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So, like many others, I have struggled a bit with the C chord. My chord perfets are pretty good. My one minuet changes are also pretty good (low 50s to high 60s). Where I have been struggling is when playing along with a song in the song app. My changes are NOT smooth.
So I had this thought and wanted some feedback on the idea. The idea is to work on learning new strum patterns and chord changes at the same time. For 15 - 20 minuets at a time I will pick a strum pattern and switch between C and A…Then C and D…etc. Every 5 minuets or so I change the strum pattern.
I assume if I keep doing this for several days, the changes will eventually get smooth(er). Right?
Thanks everyone,
Mike
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Justin teaches that practice does not make perfect, practice makes permanent. It’s probably not the best idea to divide your focus by practicing 2 things at once, in case mistakes creep in. Better to have one strum pattern nailed, and then use that for practicing chord changes. This lesson from grade 3 explains why you shouldn’t try to rush your learning (It’s not a complicated technique lesson, and it ought to be in module 1)
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Just here to say that @Richard_close2u method really works. Thanks Richard! I was struggling with C to G changes last year as I was still putting my anchor finger down first which was slowing me down. Doing this exercise daily for a few weeks and then slowing down playing songs when I got to this change to force myself to air change instead of putting my anchor finger down first when forming C solved the problem.
Thanks for such a detailed plan. I’m going to work on this and will let you know. Appreciate it very much
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15 - 20 minutes seems too long for this sort of exercise. I think it risks boredom at best. At worst - injury, from repetitive strain.
Also, as someone already mentioned, it attempts to teach two things at once.
Better to break things down into five minute chunks where you only work on one thing at a time, I think.
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I practice switching between two chords (D to C is my nemesis) without strumming and I use a metronome. If I can do it for a minute without errors I speed up the metronome, if I make an error I slow down the metronome.
Been doing this for a week now and there is a noticeable improvement when I then go to play a song.
The other thing that really helped me was to spend 1 min 3 or 4 times a day just practicing the C chord without strumming. Start off just hovering over the strings, then resting on the strings, then pressing and releasing. Rinse repeat. Then moving to put my hand on my knee between moving the chord and finally chord perfect exercise
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Here’s the technique I used that has been really beneficial.
https://community.justinguitar.com/t/c-chord-changes-advice/256171/6?u=moose408
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I am a 60-year-old beginner, with only two months of practice under my belt. I don’t have the finger flexibility to play a C chord without muting a string somewhere and that lack of flexibility also makes it hard to keep my thumb behind the neck (it wants to point to the headstock). I also notice that I’m resting the guitar neck on my palm just below where the index finger ends.
I assume I should get out of this habit. Might that be limiting my finger range? I’m having a hard time not doing it. Even standing up with the strap holding the guitar fairly high, my default is to put the neck there – for leverage, maybe. Any tips for this? Thanks!
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Hey Allan, welcome to the community! When you have a minute, consider dropping by here to tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m a 64-year-old beginner who has been at this for about a year and a half. The lack of flexibility is frustrating, but I promise it will get better with time. It would be great if you could post a photo of your C chord so folks can get a visual of what you describe. Based on what you’ve written: I do think you’re correct that you don’t want to rest the guitar neck on your palm. To stop this, you might focus on fretting the string with the tippy-tips of your fingers (especially fingers 1 and 2 for C). Of course, you’ll include the slant that Justin describes, just be sure not to use the pads of the fingers to press the string. Using the fingertips, I think, makes it nearly impossible to rest the neck against your index finger. I think it may give you more mobility in your thumb placement as well. Here’s a photo from way up the thread of Justin demonstrating:
I’m sure you’ll receive more guidance from more experienced folks too. Keep us posted on your progress!
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Thanks!!! Here is a quick picture.
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Hmm…I wonder if you’ve got a little too much slant on the first finger? Also, for me (at my level) I position my thumb more on the back of the neck to help avoid muting the first string - but that may just be due my particular physiology. One other thing I’ve tried is moving my elbow away from my body a bit - just and inch or two. Just some suggestions of things you might play with!
FWIW, I’m struggling with my index finger muting high E when I play A and mute low E with my thumb. Been working on that for a couple months now. It’s getting better - at least I can make that low E ring out when I’m consciously practicing the shape. Now to get it consistent in songs…
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Good to know. I’ll try this, too.
Putting all 3 fingers down at once is tough because it’s such a stretch unlike, say, E minor.
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Re: resting the neck in my palm.
I went back to the beginning (learning the D and A chords) with an emphasis on trying to have some bit of space between my fretting palm and the neck. I’m trying it both sitting and standing up (with a strap all the time). Damn, it’s not easy!!!
It’s causing pain in the top half (and second joint?) of my thumb. The bottom portion of the thumb is a bit inflammed from certain keyboard moves, which I’m trying to get under control. In trying to not have the neck rest in my palm, I think I’m also pushing my thumb harder against the neck to maintain some control over it, to hold it in place. Also, my thumb is bent a bit as it’s behind the neck.
Doesn’t the neck have to rest somewhere? Otherwise won’t it eventually drop as you move and your strap moves a bit?
I’ll try adjusting my elbow position.
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