Hi, how're you doing? Justin here again.
Hopefully, you've now got together your A chord, your D chord and your E chord.
Unfortunately, we're about to hit the first very challenging part of learning the guitar
which is the realisation that the hard part here is changing between the chords.
Not playing the chords.
You thought that last bit was a bit tough and your fingers are sore,
yeah, OK, it is, a bit, but now the really tough part
is realising you gotta change between the chords quickly.
Now, one of the reasons I taught you the A chord
with this kind of not the traditional fingering
is because it means that we can use the thing that I call an "anchor finger"
to change between the chords and that's gonna be your first finger.
By leaving your first finger in contact with the string all the time
when you're changing between the chords kinda gives you a reference point,
that means changing between all of the chords is loads, loads easier.
So, let's go to a close-up now and let's have a close look at the way
I'm gonna get you to use the anchor finger
to change between all of the three chords that you've learned already.
OK, here we are for a look at our D chord.
Now the first thing that we're gonna try changing between is the D chord and the E chord.
'cause this really shows the anchor finger nice and clearly.
So, there's our regular D chord.
Now, in the old days, you might have gone "OK, let's change to an E chord."
And you would have lifted all your fingers up and then you would have tried
to put them down again gone like this
"First finger, second finger, third finger, uh there we go"
And then changing back to D and you'd go "Whoa, OK, where does it go?
Um, yeah, that's how we do it"
But now, what I'm suggesting is, that to change from D chord to E chord
there's your D, you lift off your second and third fingers, but leave your first finger down
and instead slide it back one fret and then put down your other two fingers.
So it kinda already gives you a bit of guidance there.
It's the way your second and third fingers are gonna go.
To change back to D, you lift them up, the first finger forward
and put the other two back down again.
Lift them off, slide it back, put it down.
And what I'd recommend you do, is a little exercise
before we do get to next lesson, which is about how to do this really quickly,
you practice just doing strumming your D chord [plays] and then
off, slide back, two fingers down, E chord [plays].
You just lift the fingers off, slide forward and D [plays].
Just try and get used to that idea that that first finger is guiding your change.
So D to E, pretty obvious there. Two fingers off, slide back, two fingers back down,
two fingers off, slide up, put them back down!
Piece of cake!
Now, the next chord that we're gonna look at is the change from D to A.
Now if you go from D to A, the first finger is actually staying in exactly the same place.
Only it can't quite because you end up getting a bit crammed.
So what we are going for this time is D to A.
You lift off the two fingers, first finger slides back just a tiny bit.
It's not having to slide back a whole lot
and then you can replace those second and third fingers
in their right spot for the A chord.
So, there's your D and there's your A.
There's your D. The first finger's just moving just a few millimetres.
sliding up a little bit for the D, then those off, first finger just to touch back
'cause remember it's got to stay in the same fret and there you go.
That's your change there using an anchor finger from D to A.
And there's one more change left, of course, which is A to E.
So if you look, there's our A chord to change to E lift off second and third fingers,
slide the first finger back, put second/third fingers down in their right place.
there's your E chord.
Slide first finger forward a bit, put down your second and third fingers again.
Do it as an exercise: A [plays], stop, lift off, shift, down [plays] E.
Muted, lift off the fingers, first finger up, put them back down again.
And just try and get used to that practising, making that little move.
Then maybe jump to D, back to E and then to A or maybe over to D.
And just see if you can get used to that idea of that first finger staying down all the time.
You will find that if you can get this anchor technique down properly
and it will really, really work for you
and it will speed up probably double the speed
that you can play those chord changes, once you've given it a little bit of practice.
Remember as well not to press too hard, especially with that first finger.
If you're pressing really hard all the time, your first finger is gonna get really sore.
You don't want that.
The maximum pressure that you should put down is the amount that it takes
to give you a nice clear note.
There's note point in pressing hard. All you gonna do is hurt your fingers.
So, have a little bit of fun with this anchoring.
Once you are familiar with the movement and the changes between each of the chords
you're ready to start trying to do them as fast
as you possibly can in "1 Minute Changes".