How Do I Learn to Change Chords Quickly on an Acoustic Guitar?

Posted in learn guitar on 05. Aug, 2010

Keep the learn guitar questions coming! I liked this one:

Question: aha i know i gotta practice but i do every day and i just cant get it! :( help please? any like simple tips would be awesome [: thanxx [: <33
without me having to go to lessons?
&& also what tips would help mee learn to play the acoustic guitar quickly? including changing chords quickly? aha thanxx [:
Answer: Go slow and steadily speed it up. That applies to anything you are learning on guitar. Even if you think you can just dive in a play a new scale at full speed, don’t. Go slow and steady, go from one chord to the next strumming steady, slow, constant beats. Speed up a little bit at a time. After a few weeks practicing everyday you should master going from one chord to the next in a flash.

Which brings me to my next bit of advice; never expect learning guitar to be quick. Whether it is going from one chord to another or learning a full Hendrix solo, expect it to take a lifetime to learn and do not give up. You can’t learn 10 new chords in a day and use them again next week. You have to spend weeks learning something, then use it regularly if you don’t want to forget it.

4 Responses to “How Do I Learn to Change Chords Quickly on an Acoustic Guitar?”

  1. chance says:
    August 5, 2010 at 12:37 pm

    get taught by a pro

  2. wayfaroutthere says:
    August 5, 2010 at 1:09 pm

    Anticipate the change so you are ready for it, rather than scrambling to change at the correct time.

  3. English Princess ;D says:
    August 5, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    watch Youtube video’s they help you know :)
    i watched one and i sort of picked it up :)

  4. goobersmooch says:
    August 5, 2010 at 2:35 pm

    Try practicing with a metronome. They are pretty cheap. Set it for something like 25 or 30 beats per minute. Then strum a chord on each beat. When it gets easy and you can switch smoothly, speed the metronome up a notch to 31 bpm, then 32 bpm and so on. This was you will know if you are actually getting any faster and what your limits are. Depending on what chords you are playing you should be able to make some progress in one afternoon. Then just keep practice it about every other day. But don’t expect miracles, it takes time.

    I find it a lot easier to switch from one chord to the next if the chord I’m going to has at least one finger in the same place as the chord I am coming from. This helps keep your hand rooted.

    Another thing I recommend is playing each chord like an arpeggio, i.e. one note at a time. This will give you more time to get your fingers into position and show you which fingers you need to press harder or may be muffling out other strings. It also sounds cool.

    Your hands are like little athletes. They need to rest in between their work-outs. It is possible to injure yourself from too much practice. Take a break once in a while.

    There’s an old saying: Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Speed will come.

    A technique I would use when I had to learn a lot of songs real fast was to write out cheat sheets for the chords and song structure. It was easier for me to remember the picture. Then run through your set list every day or every other day. Studies show that the day of rest is important for your brain to process what it is learning.

    Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Think about that statement. If it was easy it wouldn’t be special.
    Good Luck

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