Hey there fellow guitar player. Today were gonna talk about
the G7 chord. Now you need this
chord. You may not know it yet but you need it.
Were gonna start with an easy version that you can learn right away
and use it right away. Then I'll show you a little more difficult version
but one that you're gonna use forever and you gotta know.
Let's do this.
Hi I'm Tomas Michaud from Real Guitar Success.
Today is sort of a hump day at least for me it is. It's the
26th day of my 30-days of guitar coaching
series. I hope you've been following me. Today,
were gonna do the G7 chord. Now there's an easy version
and there's also a complex one that often holds people
back a little bit. But don't worry, I'm gonna show you
not only how to finger it but I'm gonna show you way to
practice it so it'll just feel normal in no time at all.
Okay lets get on with the G7 chord.
We're gonna start with one of the easiest forms of the G7 chord
but its effective. Watch this.
We're gonna take one finger. One powerful finger
and put it on the first fret of the first
string
and strum. More or less 4 strings
G7 yeah that
easy. Now try it with me. Finger,
make sure its strong. May help to exercise a little
bit. Okay, we're ready.
On the first fret - press
(strumming)
that's really a G7 and it's not that,
listen.
Does its job.
Now, you wanna make sure
you're kinda hitting the top four strings. Its okay if you occasionally hit
the sixth and fifth but you wanna aim for the top 4
and not constantly hit the lower strings. They're not part of the
chord. A little bit now and it wont make a big difference.
So I encourage you if this is where you're at,
if you need a G7 to do something
an exercise or a song, go with a single finger version
and you can always add later. Now we're gonna go on to the next version
which is considerably harder.
On the other hand, with practice it gets a little easier and easier and you can always
start with a single finger and then add the other fingers.
Watch. We will take that power finger first.
Stick it on the first fret. Now were gonna take
your second finger and stretch it over to the fifth
string. You don't have to worry about missing a string now. Your
covering it. Second fret, fifth string, A string.
Now we've got a third finger hanging out there. Put that
on the sixth string, third fret -that's a low
string.
You've got a nice full G7 chord.
If you're trying it with me, shake out for a second. Let me talk about this. One of the keys to make in this
work properly is having your thumb
enough behind the neck. If your thumb is up and here
stretching all the way cause the neck is gonna be really
hard. I've seen some people do it but
they have to manipulate so much. Their hand hurt after a while, their
wrist. No. What you wanna do is get your
thumb behind the neck. See. My thumb
is right above there. It doesn't have to be exact like this and
it's okay if it goes to the side. But generally,
in that area as opposed to up here and
then make sure you angle your fingers up and down.
Now you see. It wont .. when I bring my fingers
over, I need to move my hand a little bit this way.
Not sticking out, that's gonna kill your wrist after a while
just kinda straight down where
sometimes I'll have it back a little bit.
And actually with the correct hand position its not that difficult.
I know. I know you're saying. “My fingers aren't that long“.
Well, really? I've compared mine to
other people and mine is about in the middle
maybe a little longer than average but not much
longer really. I've seen much longer than mine and I've seen people
with very small hands do this with no problem.
So that's not a show stopper, really. It's a matter
just working the right angle and
getting your fingertips tough enough to when they do that. It doesn't hurt and not concentrating on that.
Part of it is keeping your elbow kinda tucked in your side
not forcibly tucked in but as opposed to sticking out like
this that will make it very hard. It's easy
little things and you can't get it all at once. It's just one of the things you
keep at it and it gets better and better but
I wanna give you a quick exercise or two to practice
this. And what you do is you apply those little tips along
with the exercise a little bit each day. So to
start with just reach your hand out and form the chord
even if its one figure at a time. Do it with me. One finger.
Two fingers. Three fingers.
Deliberately rushing you a little bit. Now let it go.
We're gonna do it again but we're gonna count to 5. Ready, hit it.
1 2
3 4 5 Okay.
Don't worry if you didn't get it. I was bored demonstrating then
expecting you to get it with me. Now you cut that down.
Let's say you can do that. Let's go again.Go 1
2 3 4. Okay,
you put the pressure on and you can get the pressure on. You
wanna memorize how to finger it so you don't have to think about it too hard.
That's when you can pay attention to little subtleties. It's
not you finger it and you keep banging away until it sounds good.
No. You keep working it. Little by
little it gets better but first you work on
memorization where the fingers go. And then you're free
to pay attention to little subtleties hand position. Oh, it
feels tense. Oh, my fingers too far away from the fret.
Let's move it up a little bit. Okay, lets try it again.
Okay, getting closer this time.
You can follow. Okay, let's move it up.Let's try that again.
You get the idea? Now, when you've done that for
a little bit and its not something you sit there for now or you do it
5 minutes at a time then you practice it with another chord.
My suggestion is a C chord. They are
often together in the same song - C and G7 and they are a
good switch. Watch. Here's a basic folk style C
chord I call it. And going to G7, you move the
third finger over a string. You move the first finger
the other way. Now the second finger over.
Now I did it in an order that doesn't
matter, really. Because really what you're gonna do after a while
and that's what your aiming for. C chord, G 7
They all move together at the same time.That's where you're aiming.
You don't start there. One finger,
two finger, three finger. But if a different order
works for you that's fine too, really. Two fingers.
Oh, they all went at the same time. I can't even stop myself.
Okay, so here's the exercise. First,
just practice switching
right? G7, C. Try it with me.
Fumble, really. I gotta get you to be
okay with screwing it up at first. Fumbling. Here, we go
C chord, got it? G7
Got it? No? That's okay. C chord
Got it? Okay. You gotta be okay with just
not doing it perfectly. G7
that's it. Breath.
Okay. Now, we put a little rhythm to it.
This is kinda second level. We're gonna strum C twice and then
G7 twice. Don't worry about if its end up slowing
down. Just trying. Do it with me. Ready, go.
C
now go to G7. You wanna think about it literally.
You wanna make time. Now
back to C
and G7
Okay, that's enough. I know, that's
3 levels above where we started but I wanted to
see where you're aiming and start adding those. Feel free
to come back and watch this video again after you practice
just fingering it and you feel fairly comfortable there. They'll check out
the exercise and maybe even try it along with me. I want you to hear this from me.
You can do this even though it seems like a stretch at first.
Ive seen it over and over and over. People who thought they had no chance
of ever getting this after a while, they don't give a
second thought, really. Little hands, fat fingers,
you can do this. Hey, thanks for joining me today.
I hope you will leave me a comment and let me know that you are out there.
And if you like what I'm doing, give me a thumbs up
and subscribe if you haven't already. I'll be back tomorrow
with Day 27. I hope you will be there for me.
See you then.