October 22, 2009

Secrets To Learning How To Change Guitar Chords Like A Demon!

Can you move your fretting hand quickly when you want to change guitar chords? Your ability to change chords with speed, and total confidence, is the basis to learning how to play the guitar, as well as creating and being able to play music with this instrument.

This all comes back to the key basics when you start learning to play any type of instrument: developing brain-muscle coordination, which is usually referred to as muscle memory. People who are skilled in basketball hone their shooting skills by focusing on their hand eye coordination and muscle memory which allows them to aim the ball squarely into the hoop without much time. Practice, experience and skill teach the muscles of the arms, wrists, and hands the proper movements and strength that must be used to make a basket. Your whole body, from your brain to your muscles, will develop a strict series of movements that help you perform these functions.

The same thing is true when learning how to play the guitar. You need to train your arms, wrists, and fingers to play the chords correctly and with the needed speed, as well as train the eyes, ears, and brain to work together to play the music you read on the score. When you need to change a chord, your reflexes will kick in and you will adjust your hand.

When playing guitar chords, you have to first memorize all chords needed to play the song you want to play. Then you have to visualize how the fingers on the fretting hand needs to move in order to play the right chords. Remember when you're playing simple barre chords it's your index finger that will hold down all 6 strings across the fretboard, and becomes the most important finger.

As you move to that next chord you have to make sure the index finger positioned across the right fret, or place, on the fretboard ahead of positioning your other fingers for the chord. Simple or broken chords still require the index finger to be placed first in importance among the other fingers.

Basically it is your index finger and thumb that create your anchor on the guitar neck to make it possible for all the other fingers to press the rest of the strings for the chord. It's the index finger that most often used to play on the highest string or the lowest fret (by string 1 or pitch), as there it can easily locate the right note, and the rest of the fingers will follow and complete the chord.

When you are trying to play a song, if you want to keep time with the music,you have to be able to foresee what the next cord will be, as well as when you have to play it. If you are a beginner, it may be in your best interest to slow the speed of the song down while you play the correct chords on time and on tempo throughout the song. If you can get through that and play the whole song with no mistakes, you can slowly speed up your tempo until it's fast enough.

Some of the hardest things to learn about guitar playing and chord changing are how to change from barre to simple chords, and how to get from one low chord to a much higher chord. You will want to isolate these changes and practice them separately. If you still have trouble at the slower tempo, just skip the last beat of the last chord and employ the extra time to put your fret hand in the correct position for the next fret.

You need to continue practicing your chord changes until you can play the difficult sections the music without errors. Then return to playing the complete song, as we mentioned above. Once you can successfully play the entire song, you will be able to experiment with various strumming style to be able to emphasize a particular part of the song or a certain beat within the song. You may also want to practice alternating between strumming and light plucking so you can give your music volume and variety.

It is important to be able to mimic the way the original artist played the song on the guitar, before you tweak it to your style of playing. You'll find this will be great help in developing your hands for much harder chords and techniques using your fingers.

If you do this for every song you are learning, and you will soon be able to play through a new song like an experienced guitarist.

If you're one of those few people who are really serious about becoming a great guitarist then have a look at this review of the best guitar learning programme available today. Click here to read the Learn and Master Guitar review

Tags: how to play chords, learn how to play guitar

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