Excellent advice to move on and learn something different if you are becoming bored. Nothing kills motivation faster than grinding away at something that isn’t providing enjoyment. Need to mix it up!
I actually learned the E Major chord before A, as I originally started with Andyguitar. I’ve been doing the 1 minute exercises and strumming to the 1 using 3 chords:
E to A
A to D
E to D
I practiced strumming to Buffalo Springfield ‘For What It’s Worth’, and putting your learning into practice is a lot harder, than simply strumming.
I’d really like to learn Nirvana’s ‘About a Girl’, as the intro is just two chords. However, E Minor and G. The latter is somewhat tricky, let alone strumming (down and up). Also, the song is non-Standard tuning (D flat I think?), which is a pain to keep re-tuning.
I’ll have a look at the Beginner songbook to see if anything grabs my interest (no Oasis! I point-blank refuse to sully my guitar).
@Rossco01 Really good advice, Jason, so do I, I first thought, everything should be quite perfect before moving on, but realised soon, that progress is also a permanent ongoing consolidation process, especially with the songs. So, like you, I divided my practice routine into overlapping areas.
I believe Manos98 is correct. There is a typo possibly. I do not think it took Justin 5-6 weeks to finish a single Module. I believe he spent 4-5 days doing the routine (once per day). He then graded himself based on his goals (30 chord changes per minute etc.). He then moved on to the next Module. I believe it took 5-7 weeks to finish all of grade 1. Yes, I understand everyone will learn at their own pace, which is wonderful. Just wanted to clarify that this might still be a typo because 5-6 weeks per module sounds really odd.
Nitsuj spent 4 practice sessions on Module 1 and took around 5 to 6 weeks to go through Grade 1. Check him out to help you decide when he felt ready to move on.
I hope that is clearer.
Cheers
| Richard_close2u | JustinGuitar Moderator, Guide & Approved Teacher
Hello. New guy here. Salut to all.
I am enjoying this till now. All pretty easy to follow up and not boring at all
Actually I’m pretty late to this course stuff, being 3months now since I got my own guitar never played before.
Just to add to the topic every time I stress out about a new practice topic I just relax doing finger gyms and exercises with scales and arpegios, only the ones that sound good jajaja. Then I got back to real practice.
When justin says the criteria to move on is 30 changes a minute, is that 30 perfectly clean changes? or if they are a little sloppy, but you hit 30, you still move on?
I would say yes as long as you keep practicing them. Mine were horrid in the beginning and now a little over 4 months in I’m well over 40 though a few are still sloppy.
Nice Helen! I’d say go for it, you’ll be continuing to consolidate mod 1 as you go through mod 2 and beyond.
Welcome to the Community too by the way, you’ll find terrific support here on your journey as and when you need it. Feel free to drop an introduction post here, it’s always good to read stories of how you’ve got started and how you’re getting along.
The One Minute Changes is about moving faster and the focus is not on perfect clean changes. A little sloppy has no fixed definition but they do not need to be perfect.
Holy Diver. Come as you are. Paranoid. Others…
Enjoying so much and trying to get “Enter Sandman” a bit better and trying to be able to get an F blind most of the time…
Has someone else noticed while practicing the chord changes that:
The change from D to A is done a lot quicker than from A to D lol. For me it happens everytime, any tips?
Hi Leandro @Legural, welcome to the community! It was the other way around for me, but that’s mostly because I learned A with a different fingering when I was a kid. I’ve been at this for a couple years now, and there are still chords I find it easier to change to than from.
Leandro, welcome to the Community. As @judi indicates, everybody has things that they find easier to master than others. No shortcuts. Just keep following the practice routines, specifically One Minute Changes, daily if possible, and over time you will improve that A to D.
I found it handy to ‘slow strum’ the D and A chords for one or two practice sessions to really pare down the correct finger positions.
Am I going to run into problems in the future if I hold down D, G, and B with just two fingers? I find that I can switch quickly between these two chords by just dropping my ring finger off or on the 3rd fret of G.
Hi David,
I think that you will run into problems with this when you add the E chord and switch between E, A and D.
First, though, I wanted to be sure I understand what you had posted. I assume you are talking about the D, G and B strings when playing the A chord. Then you said you were dropping the ring finger on the 3rd fret of G. Did you mean to say the B string (which is the 2nd highest string)? That is the only 3rd fret note for A and D. Also when you switch from A to D, you would need to take the finger off the 2nd fret of the D string to play the D chord and also fret the 2nd fret of the high E string to play the D chord.
I think that it would be easier to use Justin’s finger positions to make sure you are playing all the right notes.
Later Justin will show how you can play the A chord by using just one finger to play all three fretted notes.
Welcome David! Steve gave you some good observations above. You’ll see lots of discussion in this community and on the web about alternate fingerings for chords. Most of it is legitimate. However as a beginner (I’m Grade 3) I’d recommend sticking with Justin’s recommendations. Sometimes he’ll offer two ways to play a chord even at the beginner levels. But he usually has a reason for his recommended fingerings in the early lessons. You’ll soon have enough background to understand when an alternate fingering might be appropriate. Keep asking questions like this, though! It’s much easier to learn things properly from the outset than to have to break bad habits (again, speaking from experience! )
If you’re feeling especially social, head over to the Introduce Yourself topic and tell us a bit about your guitar journey!
Hi David @AsYourGM, just checking: are you sure you are fingering your D chord correctly? If I read your post correctly, you fret strings DGB with 1 finger on the 2nd fret for the A chord, then add your ring finger on the G string, 3rd fret, to change to the D chord. If so, you are not playing a D chord: you are fretting strings DGB instead of GBE (E being the high E string). As @SteveL_G99 remarked, it is not possible to change between A and D by just moving 1 finger.
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