Guitar beginner advise

CountingCrows

Hi,

I've been playing now for just over 2 months. I'm struggling with changing my chords and keeping my strumming going at the same time.

Changing from C or D to G in particular I always breakdown, should I focus on working on the chord change on its own or concentrate on keeping the strumming rhythm?

finbarr44

I think I would concentrate on the rhyrhm, though I'm not sure how you could concentrate on one without the other.
But I wouldn't get too hung up about the chord changing, as it will come much sooner than good rhyrhm. The chord changing part of playing guitar is the easy bit, good rhythm is a life long challenge.
Keep going with it though as you are going through the hardest stage of guitar playing when everything is a challenge. In a few weeks you will wonder why C to G caused you so much trouble.
regards

Fremen

There are (at least) two ways to play the G chord. Are you using your little finger to fret the high e string, with your ring and middle fingers on the lower strings? I found that fingering harder to learn, but it makes changing to C much easier than fretting high e with your ring finger.

CountingCrows

Fremen wrote: »

There are (at least) two ways to play the G chord. Are you using your little finger to fret the high e string, with your ring and middle fingers on the lower strings? I found that fingering harder to learn, but it makes changing to C much easier than fretting high e with your ring finger.

I play the G like this;



I find moving to C fairly ok but when going back to G I have difficult getting my little fingers down.

NoQuarter

Dont worry about it at all, its simply a cae of having to practice more, 2 months is nothing in terms of guitar palying.

You could try fret two fingers first and see if the rest will follow into shape after.

funkydunkey

there is a nice sound from that chord but to start out you might consider playing it with the Open B string. That way you can use your 2nd & 3rd fingers for the bass notes and your baby finger for the E-string. Doing it this way means you change as little as possible between C & G. Also to begin with its only 3 fingers to focus on not 4. One other thing is that this version of G allows you to add the 7th note(E-String 1st Fret) from time to time for variety but that might be a bit down the road.

Banjo

Take it very slowly and focus on getting it absolutely right every time. Don't worry about the length time it takes. It's better (for now) if you can do one chord change per minute but your fingers are perfectly placed than if you can change from a C to a G in the flap of a hummingbirds wing but it's sloppy. You can *always* work on your speed but fixing sloppy technique is difficult. If you can, get someone who plays guitar to look at what you're doing and tell you if you're making an obvious mistake or making things harder on yourself than they need to be.

Once you have the chord fingering absolutely perfect, no matter how slow it is, start working with a metronome, set it to a low BPM, strum on the beat, change the chord and strum on the next beat etc - make sure that all the strings are ringing and unmuted. You can also go for a relatively high BPM and go "strum-2-3-4 strum-2-3-4" - keep your strum arm-action going for the 2-3-4 but don't make contact with the strings. It's pretty easy to do and it'll stand you in good stead later when you're working on strumming patterns.

Once you can comfortably change chords at that speed, increase the BPM and keep doing that until you're changing chords fast enough that you don't have to think about where each finger goes. Then work on your rhythm - your fretting hand will look after itself.

I should point out, this is no fun at all to do : if you find yourself miserable doing this, it's working

newballsplease

Hi just a real beginners question here. Ive started trying to learn 3 chords. A E D.
I can play the E no problem(i think), im trying to learn myself of the net, youtube and the rest.

Heres my issue, when i play the D or A etc, its like im not pressing hard enough on the strings / or/ one of my fingers is touching a string that it isnt supposed to be- hence the sound of the stings when i strum sound all muffled.
Is this just a matter of getting used to? or, am i getting into a very bad habit straight away?
anyone got any easy beginner sites for tuning a guitar either please? thanks.