Hey, how you doing? Justin here.
Today, I wanna talk a little bit about Air Changes,
which is a new approach to changing between your chords.
Up until this point, I've suggested that
you always place the fingers down in finger number order.
So 1st finger first, then 2nd finger then the 3rd finger.
And that's a great system for beginners.
It gives you a foolproof system that you can always stick to.
But the truth of the matter is,
that actually you want the fingers to go down all at the same time.
That's where Air Changes comes into place.
Let's just have a little look.
If we're looking, say, at a C chord to a D chord.
Here's the C chord. Now, when I go to a D chord,
I don't lift off my fingers and go, 1st finger, 2nd finger, 3rd finger.
If I go to the C chord, it doesn't go off and then go,
1st finger, 2nd finger, 3rd finger.
Now, it's okay if you were doing that. That's what I asked you to do.
Okay? Be cool with that.
But now what we're looking for is, moving to the D chord,
you can see here, look the D chord is already formed,
and the fingers are gonna go down all together.
Here, now we're gonna go back to the C chord.
Already the fingers are getting roughly into the right place,
and then they go down on the right strings.
Again, so to the D chord, you can see they get into position,
in the air.
Okay? If I go to the G chord, look, here they are,
they're already...there's the E chord-- the G chord rather.
We go to the E chord. I promise I will learn the names of these chords one day.
There's E to A minor, pretty simple, move that to D.
There. Already the chord shape's in the air,
to C...to E.
So you can see now, that the actual shapes are forming in the air,
before we get to the chords themselves.
And this works even with more complicated chords as well.
This isn't just for beginner chords.
In fact, the more complicated chords you get, the more important it is
that the fingers get roughly into position before they get there.
Now, this approach is something you can practice a little bit on its own.
Okay? So, just making a start on... pick a chord change that you like,
say, D to A.
Now, if you start going through that,
you'll notice straightaway now that my anchor finger is lifting off.
Okay? So I'm no longer doing this.
Now, it's okay to keep the anchor finger down.
If you find that a lot more comfortable, then you can stick with doing that,
but notice now, 2nd and 3rd fingers are changing at the same time,
and going down together.
It's not...2, 3...2, 3.
Okay? It's 2 and 3 together, now when we're making those changes.
So, my suggestion will be that you pick a pair of chords.
Something that you're reasonably confident with already.
And then sit down and have an explore of trying this Air Changes,
and making the changes in the air.
Once you're familiar with the concept,
and you feel like it's getting fairly comfortable,
then have a go at doing it for 1 minute changes,
but trying to force yourself to use this approach,
where the chords are changing in the air as you go.
So, you're still trying to push the speed a little bit.
You're trying to get the fingers moving fast.
Longer term, this is the fastest way of getting the chord changes.
If I'm really going as fast as I can to C to D,
there's no way of getting the fingers to go down one at a time.
They have to just get the shape of the chord straight there.
Already...
you know, the chord shapes are forming in the air.
The fingers know where to go. You fingers know where to go already.
You've done enough practice on this already, that they...
In there somewhere, is the instructions in your brain,
telling your fingers where to go.
Okay? Where to position themselves on the fretboard.
So now it's just the next level up
of trying to train them to get there as fast as you can, all at the same time.
Now, this isn't a requisite for passing Grade 1,
but it's something that you wanna think about in the consolidation phase.
While you're sitting there and practicing through,
making sure that all of your Grade 1 materials are strong,
you wanna be thinking about trying to get your Air Changes working.
I used to teach it a lot later in the course,
but I found that by teaching it a bit earlier and introducing the idea of it,
will mean that you get it together a lot sooner.
Okay? So don't be stressed if you can't do it.
You're probably gonna find it quite difficult.
Like everything that you learn on guitar when you first have a go at it,
it's like, "Oh I can't do it! My fingers don't work. It feels really awkward."
That's okay. This is one of those aspirational things.
This is what you wanna be targeting and keep in your mind.
Some of you might find that your fingers are already doing it,
and you might be going, trying not to do it
to put your fingers down in finger order.
And you don't have to.
Trying to teach your fingers to form the chord shapes in the air,
so that the fingers all go down in the right place at the right time
for any given chord, is the desired goal.
So spend a little bit of time in your practice routine.
Pick some chord changes. Probably the easiest ones
are the ones where all the fingers come off anyway.
So like C to G...is a good one.
You've got no danger of there being any anchor fingers.
So just looking at the chord shape and trying to lift them all off,
and trying to get the fingers to go where they need to go,
in the air, looking at it, just moving it really slowly to start off with,
trying to get there, like move them to the right place.
So it's like this smooth journey between the chord changes.
It doesn't wanna be all lumpy and, you know...
wants to try and get fluid and nice and smooth with the chord changes.
Again, that's only gonna come with practice.
Okay? So, maybe start practicing it right away.
I hope this helps you speed up your chord changes, and have fun with it.
I'll see you for more very soon, bye-bye.