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In this video, I'm going to show you a secret of changing chords quickly and smoothly. It's
really not that hard and I'll be upfront with you, nothing takes the place of practice,
practice repeating the same motions over and over and over to get good at it. But there
are better ways to practice than others. I'm gonna show you the step by step technique
for changing smoothly, getting to the chord on time and standing like a real guitar player
so for this example, I'm gonna use a D, G, D, A progression that's a 1-4-1-5 progression.
You can look at some of my other videos if you need to know more about the chords numbers
but not important right now.
Okay, start with the D chord now I want you to finger the D chord and do it accurately.
You should have a relaxed hand not close up in the air with a nice arch from behind the
neck. Now take your hand off, shake it slightly, relax and put your fingers back on. All three
fingers at one time now take a look at that D chord, take your fingers off, visualizing
in your mind what that chord supposed to look like. Wiggle your hands a little bit and put
all of three fingers back on at the same time. Now, practice that. It might take some time,
that's okay get it to about with 80% of getting it just right. Don't worry about the 100%.
Fingers all three on it at the same time, not like most of you do one at a time okay,
that's okay when you just first starting out but I'm teaching you how to get from one chord
to the other chord quickly and smoothly. Okay, won't you practice that? Common back and we're
going for the G chord. Now, the G chord -- same thing, finger to
G chord, make sure everything is sounding right, should do that with the D chord too.
Take your fingers off, wiggle more a little bit, visualize the G chord and place all three
fingers down. Good! And relaxed, don't behind the neck, just enough pressure to make the
chords down and no more. Take your fingers off, wiggle them, all three fingers back on.
Practice that with the step 3.
Step 3 is we're gonna go from the D to the G chord. Finger the D chord, strumming, go
to the G chord, all three fingers. I'm strumming just to hear it all sounding. I'm not interested
in the tempo right now. Fingers off to the D now do not overwhelm yet. Don't worry too
much about this but I'm aiming towards as little movement as possible so when I go to
the G chord, I'm not lifting my fingers way higher up the fret board. I'm taking the path
that's closest to the G chord. You don't wanna do this, that's too far. You want a nice,
small movement. Sometimes you're leaving fine a finger stays in the same place or can slide
on the same string. Good! Leave the finger there. Don't take it off if you don't need
to. G go to D now, go to G now back to D. Practice that and we'll go to step four.
Step four, finger the A chord same as the other two chords. I'm using a three finger
A there's many versions that's not too important right now which version to use. I just strum
to make sure it sounding accurately. Finger off, wiggle around a little bit, visualize
the A chord and see all fingers going just behind that second fret. Practice that like
you did in the D and G chord.
Back for step 5. We're gonna try the whole progression just a slow strum straight down,
slow temple. Start with the D, four straight down strums -- 1, 2, visualize the G now -- change
so don't stop back to D now slowing down (5:15) temple and A to D okay, practice that and
you'll be ready for the final step.
Now the final step in temple with a strum, I'm gonna start with a nice and simple strum
just down, down, up, down, down, up its four beats so here it goes 1, 2, 3, 4, down, down,
up, down, down, up change back to D now to A okay. If you have to play it slower than
that until you can get the change in time at whatever speed you need too. You can always
pick it up little by little then when you're ready and that's going smooth, you can add
a fancy to your strum for instance (strumming).
Thanks for listening. Take care.