hey how you doing justin here today i
want to talk a little bit about a thing
called forcing the changes which is
about basically making sure that you get
your chord changes done in time
now
for those people using my beginner song
course app where you play along with
songs all the time you're probably not
likely to be having too much problem
with this because the song doesn't stop
it keeps going so you kind of have to
catch up all the time and that forces
you to make the chord changes because
it's not stopping and that's what
happens in the real world of music if
you're playing a song you don't want it
to stop stopping becomes
really really obvious you can muck up
the chords as much as you like but if
you stop the rhythm
everybody realizes non-musicians people
just listening to you everyone will
notice that you screwed up if you stop
so if you're going along and you go
and then you go
there we go
if you keep that strumming going and the
rhythm is right most people won't notice
but if you go
[Music]
you can hear it's just kind of
disjointed and it doesn't
all of the the feeling of the music has
disappeared
so
if you're not using the beginner song
course app and doing the play along
thing regularly
i really want you to work on playing
with a metronome and making sure that
you don't stop that you force the chord
changes to happen
there's a little bit about it if you if
you don't stop and you're playing with a
metronome or a drum groove or whatever a
backing track
if you're doing that sort of practice
your hand feels like it's not going to
be the weak part of the
the playing here and it'll it'll
go faster but faster than it will if you
allow it to stop all the time if you're
used to going
g and then stop and then put your
fingers down and then doing the next
chord if you're used to doing that
your fingers will be like yeah no i'm
cool he'll stop i can i can do this nice
and so i have to hurry whereas if
there's a beat going on a metronome
click
you straight away have to go uh
he's not joking now i have to get there
and that kind of pressure is a really
good pressure for a beginner guitar
player to have
okay there's good there's good pressure
and there's bad pressure sometimes
pressure can make you fumble more
but this kind of pressure where you're
really trying to force those chord
changes to happen at the right time you
should be doing your one minute changes
anyway and you should be pushing
yourself in those one minute changer
sessions to try and go as fast as you
can don't just be relaxed and doing it
like it's comfortably you should be
really like come on man come on you know
give yourself a little motivational chat
while you're doing it and really force
the chord changes to be as fast as you
can and if you combine that when you're
doing your song practice really trying
to get those chords to change at the
right time put the pressure on yourself
like i said if you're using my app and
you're used to playing along you've
probably already had this is happening
naturally but i wanted to include this
lesson for those of you that are
practicing on your own without and you
maybe you've been a bit lazy with the
idea of practicing with a metronome if
you have been if that's you
use something to keep you in time and to
force you to make the chord changes at
the right time it's really really
important you don't want to allow
yourself to do these little stops it's
not the real world it's not how what
makes music feel good rhythm is the
driving thing in music even if you fluff
the chords up getting the rhythm right
is the key thing so
keeping yourself in time and keeping the
rhythm strong will help speed up your
chord changes as long as you're aware of
that and you're aware of that pressure
and i've gotta make those chord changes
get a bit faster so that the rhythm
doesn't stop and this is something that
i want you to practice if you're not
doing the play along stuff i want you to
really work on that this week and in the
coming weeks really focus on your timing
playing along with the metronome there's
loads of free metronomes available on
the web or cheap apps that you can get
that have got metronomes all my
absolutely fantastic justin guitar
metronome time trainer uh which you
should definitely check out uh as well
because it's a great metronome not
trying to sell it to you or anything
it's like 1.99 so
less than the price of a decent beer i
always say
uh
that should be your focus on your
practice for songs from now on is is
making sure that you play the song
solidly in time and forcing the chord
changes so that you always get your good
chord on beat one even if it means
leaving the previous chord a little
early you want the chord on beat one to
be your real solid chord when you're
practicing songs