Hey, how you doing?
Justin back with you today for a new exercise
which I call Perfect Fast Changes.
Now, this was kind of an accidental discovery I learned
in my left-handed practice,
where One Minute Changes and Chord Perfect Practice
weren't kinda coming together as well as they did
for the very beginner stuff,
when I was learning these, you know, new chords.
And, a little bit when I was doing some of the consolidation there
for Grade 1 as well, is where I first discovered this kind of idea.
Now, One Minute Changes, the idea is getting the fingers
moving as fast as possible.
Okay? So really just working on scrambling between the chords.
Not really worrying about you know, if the chords aren't perfect,
or you hit the wrong strings or whatever.
And Chord Perfect Practice is spending a lot of care and attention
trying to get the notes exactly right.
And in most cases, they kind of come together.
If you're practicing both those things in equal amount,
you end up having Perfect Fast Changes.
But sometimes I think it needs a little bit of individual attention
for Perfect Fast Changes.
So, what I started doing is picking two chords,
and changing between them as fast as I could,
but making sure the chords were coming out perfectly.
Now, the point is that if you are playing a song
with two chords in it,
usually you're gonna be on the one chord for at least a bar,
if not a couple of bars, before you change,
and in that sort of context
it's harder to really focus on an individual chord change.
So, I'm calling these Perfect Fast Changes PFC initials in the practice routines.
And the idea would literally be
taking a chord,
♪
get my thumb back around the back
like I'm telling you trying to do what I say.
♪
And changing, say, to that G, that's a particularly difficult chord change.
♪
Now, I'm not going...
♪
and just letting it be all sloppy and not quite right.
I'm doing the chord...
♪
and I'm strumming slightly slower. Here's the tip:
♪
change.
♪
So, what you'll find is if you do that slightly slower strum,
♪
you'll hear the notes in the chord
♪
and you'll hear if one's-- if it's not coming out right,
you'll start to hear that the notes are getting a little bit wonky.
Especially after you've done a little bit of practice on this
and you get used to this... kind of the drag of the pick,
♪
going across the strings.
♪
Doesn't have to be-- I mean, as I got better at it,
♪
I felt like I could strum a bit more normally
and still hear whether the chord was coming out right or not.
Okay? Now you can time yourself still,
you can put a timer on,
keep a track of your changes,
but you just-- the difference between this and the One Minute Changes
is really striving for the chords to be sounding excellent,
and not being satisfied with some of the notes ringing out,
or buzzy notes or any of that sort of stuff.
You really want to be aiming now for the chords to be sounding really good
as often as you can.
Sometimes when you're playing the song
chords are gonna get a bit fluffy, whatever.
You know, you still don't want to be critical of yourself,
but you wanna strive for the chords to be as perfect as you can.
so you're doing-- you set your timer,
go, and you're going one chord,
♪
two chord,
♪
trying to get the air changes in if you can.
♪
just really working on getting those chord changes...
♪
really nice,
♪
getting the chords sounding really good...
♪
every time.
♪
You can get it up a little bit.
♪
That's great.
♪
I'm finding I'm muting when I'm playing it this way.
I'm muting between the chords with my strumming hand.
I don't remember being able to do that
when I was practicing it left-handed so,
gonna try and stop myself from doing it now.
That's probably more like what it's gonna sound like.
Some of the strings gonna ring between the changes. That's fine.
C to that big G is another good one to practice.
You'll find...
♪
that's a difficult change, C to the big G.
♪
Of course you're unlikely to do that particular one,
because you'll go C to G that way
just because it flows easier
and I've just dropped my pick, that's okay.
The point is that if you need practice on the chords
and the One Minute Changes aren't doing it for you,
and the Chord Perfect Practice
and you still feel like you need something,
then this is a fantastic exercise and one that I definitely recommend
that you insert into your practice routine.