I want to talk about the 80/20 rule and how it applies to the learning bar
chords and then actually touring guitar in general. Now if you're not familiar
with it, it's also called the Pareto principle. Pareto who was an economist
discovered that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the land holders.
This principle can apply to way more areas than you would ever think or at
least I would have thought before I originally read about it.
Things like 80% of sales are created by roughly 20% of the customers, 20% of the
videos in the video store account for 80% of the rentals. Baseball I read
statistic that they thought that roughly 15% of the players create 85% of the
wins. They found in sports that roughly 20% of exercises and habits account for
80% of the results and that's the idea we want to apply to guitar playing. We
want to get the most bang for the buck in other words to put your effort and
time where you going to get the most results the fastest. When I first started
playing guitar, I spent a lot of time doing things that really didn't produce
a lot of results. And over the years I noticed especially when I started
teaching that students were doing the same things . They were putting their
effort and stressing over things that really didn't get them very far. And
by guiding them to do things that were more important we're gonna get more
results in in the right order they may progress much faster and that's what I
want to teach you in this barre chord course as well as in all of my courses.
Now in terms of barre chords, here's just some of the general areas
where you're going to get more results for the time and effort you put in. First
of all a lot of students want to play songs and I perfectly understand that
that's why you got into this. But it's much more efficient to learn specific
exercises strategic exercises to get better at techniques than to just play
song, song, song. Now you shouldn't do both of course but I recommend you put more
your effort on the right exercises at the right time. Here's why, when you play
a song there may be a technique or a chord or something in this case
bar chords that just comes up once in a while so you can play a two-minute song
over and over. Let's say in 10 minutes you can play it 5 times so you get a
chance to work on that bar chord 5 times. Well you can do an exercise in 2
minutes that hits the same barre chord 50 times and even more if it's a very
well designed exercise. So by doing exercises, you're gonna get a chance to
work on the things you need to work on in a shorter period of time much more
often and maybe even more importantly you get the chance to more easily see
what you're doing wrong and to fix it because by the time you play a whole
song at 2 minutes or short song some 1 or 3 or 4 minutes long you
forget by the time you get to that barre chord again what you need to do right
because of so much before and after it. Another area is by focusing on keys and
music that are most common that people use for guitar playing. Those keys are C
G, D, A and E. Now the way I memorize that, is I start with C and I keep counting up
by 5 - C D E F G might look backwards to you. Then I start over G A B C D and so
on D E F G A - A B C D E. Those keys by far are used at least 80% of time compared
to other keys for guitar. So what you do is you identify the chords in those keys
and you practice the switching between the chords that you're most likely to
use. You get a lot more bang for your buck that way then randomly practicing
any chord or any changing from one chord to another. And changing from one chord
to another is really the critical issue not just the chord. You got to get the
chord first but you want to work at changing slowly at first between one
chord and another. And finally practicing common chord progressions is a very
strategic use of your time and very beneficial. What I mean by common chord
progression is the short chord sequences that are used over and over in popular
music. So by practicing those progressions not only your practicing the
right chord movements but you begin to hear and recognize those patterns and
songs which makes learning songs much more efficient. Okay thanks for hearing
me out with. This this is much more valuable to me. Now I realize
and when I first started and I'm hoping to inspire you a little bit and to see
some of the mythology that I'm using throughout this course and all my guitar
teaching. Hi there I'm Tomas Michaud. What you just watched is a short video from
my new course Barre Chords For Everyone. I have quite a few videos on YouTube
showing different tips and tricks to help with playing Barre Chords. If you'd
like more help, check out my new course. I'll put a link in the description below
this video. This course is the result of 40 years teaching and getting feedback
from students on their difficulties with playing Barre Chords. I know how
frustrating this could be and there's no reason to let this hold you back. Not
only will my new course help you nail Barre chords but with 75 videos, play
along tracks, tabs that you can download, you'll get a complete and fun guitar
learning experience, Check out the link in the description below. I hope to see
you soon either in the course or in another YouTube video. Bye for now.