Hi there I'm Tomas. Today I want to share with you my best kept secret for how to change chords
smoothly on the guitar. This is from a series of lessons in Real Guitar Success. Enjoy.
Changing chords. Easy, right? Yeah. I know better. Look, I've taught hundreds and hundreds
of students and one of several big problems that come up eventually is changing chords on time
and it seems to be an issue for everyone. As a matter of fact, I found students that have been
playing on their own usually without a good teacher are still having a hard time actually
changing in time. They'll speed up and slow down to make the change and after a while they don't
even notice what they're doing. That's not going to happen to you because in this next several
lessons I’m going to give you some strategies for changing chords on time and doing it in a gradual
way that'll make it easier for you to get the handle on it so let's go ahead and get started.
Get your guitar out tuned ready to go and we're going to start with strategy number one.
This first strategy for changing chords, you're going to find incredibly useful.
The strategy is to build your chord from the bottom up. Now what a lot of students
do when they're making chords is they put one finger on at a time and they start with
probably the first finger or so second and third. But when you're building a chord initially it's
more advantageous to build the chords starting with the bass note of the chord because when
you're changing chords you can often get away with hitting the bass note and then hitting the rest of
the chord so that gives you just a little teeny bit extra time to finger the rest of the chord.
So here's the first example, we're going to take a D chord and let's say you're playing a D chord and
you hit the bass note first and strum. So even if you just strum the chord you still start from the
bass note. Now I'm going to that C the first form of the C we learned which technically is a Cadd 9.
You'll notice the first thing I do is get my second finger over here
on the third fret of the fifth string that gives me just a tiny fraction of a second to get the
other finger in place. So one way to practice that is to hit the D base note and play the D chord
and then practice hitting the C bass note and playing the C chord. That's training you
to get the base note first because that's what you're going to hit first there.
There, I actually waited quite a while to put my first finger down but I had time
and it gets to be kind of natural. Now this might seem contradictory to a basic principle
that I've talked about earlier of trying to get all your fingers down at one time and
eventually you want to lean towards doing that but in the beginning you'll find it much easier to get
this habit of getting to the base note first so that you can actually play chord progressions
and get better at putting all the fingers down at one time. There's another chord progression that
I want you to practice also. It's from A minor which is an open bass note that's nice and easy,
to the F chord which uses the fourth string third fret. Yes I'm using that little partial bar
to the A minor and back and forth. So if you practice the A minor and then getting that
third finger down first you've got just a little teeny bit extra time to get the other fingers
down for the F chord. So again let's just do it one note and then one note for the base node.
Go ahead and try this with me - A minor. We'll start with the open fifth string.
Now play the A minor technically. I could even do this open fifth string and then place the
chord right now to the F chord. I'm exaggerating. You don't wait that long but I was exaggerating
to show you I didn't really need those until I actually strike the rest of the strings.
A minor. Do it with me. Fifth string
third finger. Again, I'm exaggerating. As soon as you get that bass note try to get the
other fingers there. And one more, we're going to choose the E minor which uses an open E bass note
and moving to the G chord. Try that with me. Low E
bad base note. Now move that second finger over to get the bass note right.
So one of the processes involved here is kind of thinking ahead what finger do I need to move
and where does it need to go to get the bass note first. So I'm looking at the open E. I need that
second finger to get to the third fret right so even though it's a small amount of time it helps.
Look at this. I delayed putting the rest of the chord down just to kind of show you the idea.
So I would encourage you to practice those three motions. It'll serve to both help you with those
chord changes but it'll also give you this kind of habit, kind of ingrain it in your physicality.
It'll actually become a part of you so I'm often finding myself with more complex chords
doing that. I'll get to the bass note first and then play the rest of the chord without
even thinking about it because I have a sense on a physical level that I'm going to have to play that
bass note first so that's where my finger starts to go. You'll get that habit too after a while.
The second strategy for changing chords is the principle of minimum movement.
There are two techniques we're going to work on to achieve this minimum movement.
One is called using a pivot finger and the other is a guide finger. Now the pivot finger
means you find a common finger between chords and leave it where it is and move the other fingers.
It could be one finger or even a couple fingers which I'll show you in a minute.
Guide finger means that the finger is going to stay on the same string but it might slide up
a fret or two one way or the other so let's start off with the pivot finger.
For that I'm going to demonstrate using a C chord kind of a traditional folk style form of the C
chord going to an A minor. Now this is a very common change which is one reason I picked this.
The C chord has two fingers in common with the A minor chord the first finger and the second
finger. So to go from the C to the A minor, I take the third finger off and place it next to
the second finger to make it A minor chord. Again, to go back to the C chord I'm going to move the
third finger back to the fifth string third fret and it becomes a C chord. You can see these first
two fingers aren't moving. They're pivot fingers. So try this one with me and then we'll do another
one. Start with your C chord. Go ahead and finger it first finger on the first fret second string
second finger down on the fourth string second fret and then the fifth string
third fret. Okay let's just strum, just see it. Don't worry if it doesn't sound great yet.
Now take the third finger off and move it over to the third string second fret. It
should sound like that. Let's go back now - third finger up and on the fifth string third fret.
Now let's just try strumming two times each C chord. Go. Third finger move it.
Third finger back to the fifth string and third finger back to the third string.
Good. Okay. Let's do one more and again this is a very useful movement that I use very often.
We're going to start with a D chord. Make your D chord first finger
third string second fret, second finger on the first string second
fret and in between the third finger and the second string third fret.
Now we're going to move the first two fingers into a C form chord. This is actually called a Cadd9.
We'll use this often. It's a beautiful chord and then back to the D. Now when I move, I put the
first finger on the fourth string second fret and the second finger on the fifth string third fret.
Notice it's the same two notes that we used in the kind of traditional form of the C chord
back to the D. Let's try that movement. D chord strum once. Now move the first finger
over a string and the second finger down on the fifth string.
I did that in order for a reason. It's actually easier for me to just move over and then get that
second finger over. Now ideally you'll get to a place where the two fingers will just go at once
but this is a great intermediate step and the concept applies to many chords that you'll
still use it from time to time. Okay, D play it. Move over first finger, second finger now
and strum. Let's go back. Go back by moving the first finger over a string to the third string
and then the second finger goes all the way back to the first string second fret - a D chord. Let's
do it again. First finger over. We're going to make that Cadd9 second finger strum and then back.
Okay, don't worry. The point right now is not to perfect this. It's just to start getting
the idea not only in your head but into your body so you feel the movement of the fingers
and that's why I'm having you go through this not to get it perfectly.
Let's go on to the guide finger. The guide finger means that we're going to slide the finger one way
or another one chord progression. We can use This going from a basic E chord going to a D chord.
Now you'll notice what I do is I take my second and third fingers off, slide up the first finger
and then put the second and third fingers down. So to go back I take the fingers off slide down one
and put them back on to make the E chord. Let's just try this. Again, just
feel it physically. First finger down on the first fret of the third string.
The fourth and fifth strings together with the second and third fingers that's an E.
Now let's take the second and third fingers off, slide up one fret
and then put them down to make a D chord. Got it? Go ahead and strum just to confirm the sound
and again don't worry how great it sounds right now. We're going to go backwards. Take the second,
third finger off slide down one string and then put them back on the fifth and fourth strings
second fret. And one more time take off slide up one make a D chord that's a guide finger.
Now there's one more that is very common going from a D to an A chord. Look at this
from the D, I take my first and second fingers off, slide down the third finger
and put them back on to make that three finger a chord.
Now I often use a different form of A but still this is a valuable form to know. Then to go back
I take the first and second finger off slide up one fret and put the first segment back down.
Let's try that together. Start with a D chord. Go ahead and just so you hear the sound. Now
take your first, second fingers off, slide down the third finger to the second fret
and put the first and second fingers down on the fourth and the third string to make an A
chord. I'm strumming from the fifth string - that's the bass note and then back up.
Take the first and second fingers off, slide up one fret and make a D four.
Guide fingers. A very useful technique. It's a great intermediary until you can just get all
the fingers down at once but you'll still fine especially with more complex chords that as the
years go by you'll still use this idea to get from one chord to another quicker and more efficiently.
Now for the third common chord changing strategy, common shapes. Now we're going to start off with a
really obvious one, at least it looks obvious when you see it. An E chord to an A minor chord. Now
you can see right away that the shape of the chord looks exactly the same, only I'm moving everything
up one string. We say up because higher pitch or we'll say over maybe when everything goes over
one string and now it's an A minor. Let's do it together. Make your E chord first finger on the
first fret of the third string and then the second and third go together on the second fret.
Yeah, just get that sound in your ear or anything close to it. Now we're gonna move everything
over together. The whole shape to the A minor chord so everything goes over one string. Now
my second finger is on the fourth string. Third string is my third finger and the second string
has my first finger, first fret. That's what it should sound like or something close to that, huh.
Let's go back now. Everything comes up. I'm keeping the shape and moving it
over to the E chord. Now I'm on the fifth string second fret,
fourth string and the first finger is on the third string.
What do you think? Isit good? Let's try one more time. Come on. Make your E. Go ahead. Strum once.
Move over to A minor. Strum. It's okay if it didn't sound right. Fix it a little bit. Now
back to the E. Everything stays the same over common shape. Now here's another one
that's not quite as obvious. I'm going to make my C. We'll call the Cadd9.
By the way this is a good time for me to tell you the Cadd9 can look like this without the
pinky or you can put the pinky down on the third fret first string and it's still the same chord.
It's kind of a rearrangement of the notes a little bit but sometimes I put the pinky down,
sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'll alternate actually. It gives me some variety
like that. So for now I'm going to put the pinky down just to demonstrate something.
Cadd9 going to a G. I'm just going to move the shape of my first two fingers over
down one string. Now I say down because physically it's up but it's going pitch wise down. Now I got
my second finger on the sixth string - a four finger G chord. Try that one with me.
Make your C chord. Put your first and second fingers down on the fifth string second finger
fourth string first finger that's the second fret. Now put your third and pinky together
next to each other on the third fret on the first string and the second string.
Go ahead and give it a strum. I'm not after a perfect sound just to get some sound going so we
can connect the sound with the finger movements. Now let's move the first and second fingers. Lift
them off together and move them over or down we'll say the two lower strings. I've got my
second finger on the sixth string now and the first finger on the fifth. Let's go back now.
Moving the first and second finger over one string now fifth and fourth Cadd9.
Okay, getting sore yet? One more move. Back to G. Let's do it together first and second down to G
okay. This is called common shapes and when you start looking for it you'll see
that there are more places than you would have thought of to use this.
Thanks for joining me. If you found this helpful you're gonna love what I have to say
next. I've created an Ebook on how to switch chords
quickly, easily and smoothly. I've included seven principles, graphics and step-by-step exercises.
This Ebook is the result of years of teaching and studying how to help people like you with this
ongoing struggle. You can get this at no charge. No charge. Click the link in the description.
Add your name and email and you'll get immediate access. The only thing that I ask
is that you make some time to put these hard earned lessons into practice and get results and
if you know anybody else that could benefit please pass it on. Thanks again. I'll see you again soon.